Recovery
by ThirstySatyr
Summary: Pre-Deathwish. "Healing" sequel. Reading "Healing" immediately prior is likely helpful. Cal wakes up thinking it's his brother beside him. Turns out it's Robin, & now Cal must deal with the consequence of the mistaken identity. M for language, M/M, squik.
1. Thanking the Accademy

Pre-Deathwish. "Healing" sequel. Reading "Healing" immediately prior is likely helpful. Cal wakes up thinking it is his brother beside him. Turns out its Robin, & now Cal must deal with the consequence of the mistaken identity. M for language, M/M, squick.

Title: Recovery

Author: ThirstySatyr

Rating: M, for language, violence, mild m/m sexuality, and squick content

Chapter 1/10: Thanking the Academy

Standard Disclaimer: Not mine. Rob Thurman's.

Note: This story takes places pre-Thurman's _Deathwish, _completely ignoring the canon therein. Reading my other Leandros-fic, _Healing,_ immediately before this would likely be helpful.

Also of note: Due to some extremely eloquent and adamant insistence from people both on FF(dot)net and off, I've decided to actually post the second half of _Healing_. I have a big thing about trying to keep my fan fiction within the possible realm of cannon, which was why I originally hesitated to post this. Additionally, due to the events of _Deathwish_¸ my timing is a little odd. My apologies to those who keep track of such things.

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Robin was watching me, a slow growing horror filling his bright green eyes.

"No..."

Try as I might, that was all I could force out. Even injured, even drugged, I should have known. My lips pressed to his, seeking a strength so familiar, I should have known. Not Niko; not my brother. God damned fucking hell, I should have known.

Robin just kept looking at me, so clearly trying to figure out what was going wrong. Did he realize? Did he understand the awful, horrible mistake I'd made? Could he understand?

"Cal," the puck reached a hand out to me, bridging the expanse of bed between our bodies. Naked, unclothed, disrobed bodies. I was naked. With Robin. Fuckity, fuck, fuck.

"No," was all I could get past my shock.

"Caliban, please," Robin tried again, moving minutely closer to me.

Like a shot I was off the bed, backing away like the expert I was. My injured ankle wobbled underneath me and I felt some stitches in my back give, but ignored it all. This was bad; so much more than bad. The room came to me in flashes, and it took a second to figure out where I was. Promise's apartment, the guest room down the hall from the master bedroom. That meant Promise, and very likely my brother, was just down the hall.

This was so much more than bad.

"No, no. God no..." the words kept rushing out of me, and my head refused to come up with anything more coherent. Then Robin got up off the bed, and my brain stopped entirely.

"Caliban, please," he spoke quietly, like soothing an animal. "Let's just sit down... and talk... Just talk. Please."

He took a small step toward me, trying to get around the bed in the most non-threatening way possible. "Please, Cal. You're bleeding again. Just... let me take a look at your back. Please..."

I was moving for the door so fast, I felt dizzy. I needed to escape, needed to find some room to think. My comfort zone was in a whole fucking other state, and I just couldn't deal with this right now.

Then I stopped, and the world went painfully still. Standing in the hall, looking back into the depth of her room, with her long nude back to me, was Promise.

"What am I _supposed_ to think, Niko?" Promise's voice was as close to shrill as I'd ever heard, stressed and brittle. The usually smooth lines of her face were twisted around eyes that couldn't decide to be hurt or horrified. "You reach for me... you touch me, and react like something is _missing!_ What should I think?"

I must have made some sort of sound, because her twilight eyes suddenly swung to me. The hurt and horror mixed for a brief moment, only to be swallowed by shock. I could just image what she was seeing. Me, sleep tousled, flushed, and dripping blood onto her vanilla carpet. Oh, and naked. Mustn't forget the naked. I couldn't imagine how this could get much worse.

I took a moment to wish St Murphy didn't take such glee in proving me wrong.

Both Niko and Robin hit the hallway at the same time, both talking in not-so soothing voices.

"Promise, please. Its not..."

"Caliban, please. Just come back..."

Both voices stopped abruptly, as observant eyes took in everything. And there we stood, four people naked as a lark and none of us happy about it. I could feel the tension growing, waiting for the just the wrong thing to ignite. The explosion was going to be spectacular.

"No," my voice crawled out of me. I really was too fond of that word.

I felt three sets of eyes lock on me - green, lavender, and mirror gray - and I knew with a clarity that hurt that I had to fix this. If I didn't fix this, the destruction I'd been so happy to avoid with Darkling would break on us like am avalanche.

Using the tension like a smokescreen I turned to Robin, catching him with eyes I hoped were as crazed as they needed to be.

"No!" my voice came again, screaming this time.

Then I was on the puck, attacking like my life depended on it. It took a moment for Promise and Niko to react, and I was grateful for it. I wanted to give Robin a chance to gather his senses, give him a chance to defend himself. 'Cause I wasn't planning on stopping.

I chased him deeper into the room, back toward the bed area. The puck made it through the forier with remarkable speed, but I stayed with him. He was lagging slightly, trying to look at me, trying to understand what was hapening. If I could find a way, I'd thank him for that later; he was my friend and he wanted to figure out who was more in danger, him or me. It was sweet, really.

I knocked him to the ground when we reached the main part of the room, careful to angle his fall onto the pile of disrupted blankets. It may have been a growl that escaped me, ringing through the room as I leapt for him again. I heard Niko and Promise enter the room, not far behind us. But once in they froze, both still too shocked to react.

My knees found purchase on either side of the puck's torso, careful to sit high on his ribs... but not too high. I _so_ didn't need to go there again... I struck at Robin with wild, uncontrolled blows, grateful for his sense of self preservation. Nearly every strike was carefully deflected; he didn't want to hurt me, but he wasn't going to let me hurt him either.

And all the while, I screamed. "No! No, I won't let you! Won't! Won't!" Every flailing strike I punctuated with another shout, "Won't! Let! You! Can't! Have! Him!"

I had never been a good actor; a good liar, maybe, but acting always seemed just out of my reach. Right now, I needed to be good. Fuck, I needed to be great. So I poured everything I had into each seemingly mindless blow. Reaching down into the depths of my fuzzy memories, I found a crazed darkness and welcomed it. I let it fill me up, cover me, and pull me under. And much faster than I was happy with, I wasn't acting anymore. Where my knees touched the floor, my skin remembered sand like broken glass. With every ragged breath I took, I could taste rot and violent death. And with every sound that escaped me, I could hear the insanity wrapping tighter around my mind. And I let it. I needed each and every one of them to see me, stark raving out of my mind, and look away from what was real. I needed them to believe the lie; so I gave them the truth.

"No more! No more! No! More! Of! Me! No brothers! No monsters! No more!" I screamed it until I tasted blood at the back of my mouth. I was loosing myself, yielding to the monster, succumbing to the void. I wasn't going to come back from this; who was I fooling, thinking I could use this, this… _madness_ as if it were a tool. As if I would have control, as if I could just turn it off. But if they believed, if I could make them look away, then at least it might be worth it…

Through the haze of descending insanity I barely felt the electric pain that shot across the top of my head. Then, rather suddenly, I was flying, and the room flashed in a blur past my vision. The hand propelling me by the grip in my hair abruptly released and I had only a moment to wonder if my back would leave blood stains on Promise's lovely wall. My vision steadied in stages, and my brother's eyes were there, snaring all my awareness.

He looked scared. And, like every other time that look was in his eyes, it was my fault. But as much as I wanted to make the fear go away, the madness still rode me.

"No! You can't have him!" the scream exploded out of me and I began to thrash wildly. My brother was as adept at avoiding my flailing blows as Robin; but my brother had none of the puck's qualms. I let it go; after all, black and blue were good colours for me. Uninvited panic screamed through my veins when he caught my wrists, pressing them to the floor. I struggled mindlessly against his grip, kicking, thrashing, and desperately trying to hold still. The press of his body sent terrifying mixed signals through me, letting me know I wasn't going anywhere. Conflicting instincts tore at the inside of my head; on the surface, the madness I'd so stupidly invited still held sway, letting me know that I was about to die (c_an't escape…must escape…_). Yet in the depth of me, I knew, with out a doubt, that this was my brother and that by some miracle we were both alive (_its Niko…stop fighting… its Niko…_).

"Cal!" my brother's voice reached me through the haze of instinct and logic, and the madness paused like it had been slapped.

"Cal! Cal, damn it! God; Cal, listen to me. You aren't there any more. _We_ aren't there any more." His eyes were cautious as he leaned in, pressing his forehead to mine, "They don't have me, little brother. They don't have either of us…You found me…"

The suddenly silent room rang with his quiet words, and I felt the insanity that was holding me down give way. Jesus fucking Christ that was stupid; my deep down crazies weren't something convenient to switch on and off when I wanted to use them. No, they were something to fight back with every ounce of my will… something that would gleefully eat me alive if I ever tried something this idiotic again.

But, like every time before, my brother had saved me. I let that knowledge clear the last of the distance from my eyes.

"Niko…" his name was almost a question. And if I lied to myself and pretended that I didn't sound like a lost five-year-old, no one had to know it but me.

It took about ten minutes to re-bandage my back, wipe my blood from the wall, and find comfortable robes for all the naked people. The vicodin that Robin had cautiously handed me once we all hit the dinning room was a long ways from taking effect, and I was struggling to keep from growling at the laps. The coffee that Promise had put in front of me, an apologetic smile soft on her face, was working a bit faster.

Everyone had scattered once it was decided that I wasn't about to slip back into bat-shit-crazy, each moving to something that might clear the "Cal almost lost it again" taste from their minds. I let it go. So long as I drove that accusing look from Promise's eyes, I didn't mind. So long as she didn't look at me and wonder about Niko…

"I'm so sorry Niko… I…" Promise's voice floated quietly from the deep in the kitchen, so hushed that I probably shouldn't have been able to hear her. Tumulus did that to me though; sharpened all the animal senses that your instincts need to stay alive. I probably should have distracted myself, been polite and left her to the privacy she was trying for. Should have, but didn't.

"I don't mean to forget," she continued, her voice thick with apologies. "I _know_ how close you are. I don't mean to forget. You're so close, so connected. You knew… Niko, you knew something was wrong. Not with me. With Cal. You knew, and I… I assumed. I made a stupid mistake. Again. I'm so sorry…"

The hushed bass of my brother's voice wasn't nearly as clear, but a part of me knew what he must be saying.

I'd done it. I might not be able to act, but damned if I couldn't lie. And Promise believed the lie. I closed my eyes and let my head settle on the cherry dinning table, a deep sign rushing quietly out of my lungs.

I'd like to thank the academy…


	2. Friends

Title: Recovery

Author: ThirstySatyr

Rating: M, for language, violence, mild m/m sexuality, and squick content

Chapter 2/10: Friends _or_ What We Need

Standard Disclaimer: Not mine. Rob Thurman's.

Note: Awwkwaaard...

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Promise no longer suspecting her lover and her lover's brother having a secret, less than standard, and kind of disturbing, relationship; check.

Robin no longer suspecting the same thing; not so much with the check.

The puck suspected something, I could tell. The perverted jerk.

Once we had all taken turns bathing off the last two days – or in the case of Niko and me, the last week, we gathered again in the dinning room. Amazingly, somewhere in the flurry of activity Promise had managed to pull together a salad, toast, and some very tasty salami sandwiches. Which was good, because I was fucking starving. I was working my way through my fourth piece of gourmet processed-meat heaven, ignoring how my stomach cramped after being empty for too long, when Robin asked the question I least wanted to hear.

"So, what happened while the two of you were… gone?"

My food caught about halfway down my throat, suddenly a lot less tasty. When I looked up my brother's eyes were waiting. Before I could choke down the salami-tar now stuck somewhere between my lungs and my heart, he spoke up, answering the painfully quiet room.

"I don't think that's the best conversation right now." He didn't look away from me as he spoke, communicating worlds that he didn't want to say out loud. "The day has been tense enough, already. Tomorrow. We'll…" he looked away from me then, taking an uncharacteristically shaky breath. I hoped for his sake that it actually worked to steady him; I doubted it though. When he spoke again, I could still feel the weight in his voice "…tomorrow."

Robin looked almost sick as he swallowed whatever it was he'd wanted to say next. He'd been stupid enough to ask the question; at least he was smart enough to take the answer.

When I looked from the slightly green puck to Promise, I thought I felt my heart stutter. I wasn't a subtle person. Sometimes, I could even be called oblivious. But this… this I could see without even trying. Her eyes were so open, her whole body language screaming how badly she wanted to protect my brother from what _was_, and now could never be un-done. My brother didn't have to give details; she knew that whatever it had been had been awful and painful and, more likely than not, nearly killed the man she loved. And the most horrible part was she'd made it worse, by hurting me. And by hurting me, she'd hurt Niko. At least that's what she told me, sitting there, unmoving, unspeaking and watching my brother with unwavering eyes. I could all but read the apology written all over her skin.

"I think…" my voice broke the uncomfortable silence in the room, drawing everyone's unblinking attention. I needed to figure out how to not do that. It was damned unnerving.

"I think I need to head out. Some air. A walk. Something not… not here…" I tried not to look at Promise when I said that, but hoped my brother got the message. I'd done what I could to start the process, now it was up to Niko to finish making it better with her.

No one tried to stop me as I headed out the door and down the stairwell. The sound of my own footsteps echoing off concrete and steel was oddly soothing; I felt almost stable by the time I reached the first floor. Then I hit the lobby and saw Robin waiting. Foolishly I'd hoped to get away clean, avoiding any probing questions and meaningful looks. He'd taken the elevator and beat me down. Unlike my cowardly exit, he'd likely been escorted out after asking if he could join in on the make-up sex; you could count on a puck to think of sex first. I just wished it hadn't been me he thought of second.

"I kind of thought I gave the impression of not needing company…" I growled as I kept walking. "I could be more of an ass, if that'd make it easier to tell."

Without missing a beat, the puck was walking beside me, smiling reassuringly at the confused and slightly frightened looking doorman. The guy must be new; all the others referred to Niko and me as Mrs. Nottinger's "eccentric" friends, and tried to politely stay out of our way. I smiled at him too. I got the feeling it wasn't quite as reassuring as Robin's.

The puck walked quietly beside me for three blocks, humming just under his breath, smiling and unobtrusively looking round like he'd never _really_ admired the beauty of up town New York before. It was making me want to punch him.

"Can't you just let me brood in peace?" I snarled, not really expecting an answer.

He just smiled and without slowing pace, stepped closer to me. Instinctively I side-stepped to keep out of his way, ducking around the corner we'd just come to in hopes of leaving him behind. It was a foolish hope and I knew it. And after it happened a fourth time, I realized I was being herded.

"No…" I snapped, stopping dead in the middle of the sidewalk. The hoodlum that'd been walking just a little too close behind us dodged around my sudden stop with a nervous look, seemingly only then to realize that we probably weren't the best choice of prey. He continued down the sidewalk, body tense and carefully not looking back.

Robin never turned his attention from me, just continued to look at me with a smile so serene I wanted to rip it from his face.

"'_No'_" he smiled and gave a laugh with absolutely no humor. "You are awfully fond of that word. Though I must admit it _has_ served you well," he paused, fidgeting delicately with the lapel of his jacket. "I thought my couch might be better suited to moping than your own. One never knows when Niko might return home. Nor who might be in tow."

He stopped again, his eyes intense and serious, "And though your performance was excellent the first time… a second might not be as convincing."

I wanted to puke. I wanted to puke, and quite possibly scream until I didn't have to have someone look at me like that ever again. So much for my acting ability.

Robin stepped close to me, continuing quietly. "You need to talk, Caliban. You may not like it, but you need it. If you don't, you're just going to turn it all inward and explode. On top of that, I'm _not_ an idiot. And between the two of you, enough half truths were thrown about that I have an idea what happened while you were gone… and… and unpleasant doesn't begin to cover it. I have wine, and I'm your friend. The madness you displayed earlier will only come back if you don't find a way to let it go. Sit on my ridiculously expensive couch, have a glass of disgustingly fantastic wine, and let it out," he signed deeply and stepped even closer to me, turning my personal space into a joke to laugh about over coffee. "Talk to me Caliban; let me be your friend."

The utter lack of emotion from the puck was what kept me from running. He was blank; no swagger, no anger, no arrogance. Robin was just telling me a truth and letting me do with it what I would. So I gestured mutely for him to keep walking, and fell back into step beside him. I knew where we were going this time, and was happy to have the herding stop.

Uncharacteristically, the puck didn't complain when I headed for the stairwell, just held the door for me and matched his pace to mine. I almost dreaded entering his penthouse apartment, ready to cringe from a pile of underwear tucked neatly behind a ficus. I really wasn't looking forward to the smell of sex and expensive fast food either. From what I'd seen, the puck was pretty typically dreadful about cleaning up after himself. He'd never fully recovered from having his last consistent housekeeper try to kill him, and now stuck with a maid-for-hire service once a month. About once a week I got to hear him bemoaned the fact that he actually had to feed himself with food that he'd cooked himself. Not, to hear him tell it, that he was a bad cook. He was excellent actually, superb even. Rather like a god of culinary abilities, to be quite honest. Having tasted his version of lasagna, and having watched my brother suppress a smile doing the same, I had to give him a little credit.

When I followed him into his six bedroom boho sprawl, I was in a level enough mood to appreciate the lack of other people's underpants. The place was actually rather tidy, and I took a small amount of joy flopping on the couch with a grunt and propping a dusty shoe on the giant piece of crystal that acted as his coffee table.

But that was where my good mood ended. I sulked quietly as I watched Robin move around his home, hanging his jacket in the front closet, changing into "evening loafers", even disappearing into the kitchen to grind some heavily vanilla scented coffee beans. It was almost twenty minutes before he sat down across from me, with a freshly opened bottle of something I didn't know how to pronounce. As he poured two large glasses of almost blood red wine, the smell hit me of something so old, the alcohol was legal to drive, vote, retire and be called Methuselah in all fifty states.

After my first sip, which like all really good wine tasted fairly bad, I remained quiet. I needed to think. How much to tell? How little to tell? What parts to hold back to protect myself, but in the end would inevitable be needed to save someone's life? All the juicy parts were practically dripping; only problem was, it was with Leandros' blood.

I remained quiet for a few minutes more, nursing slowly at the expensive wine. I had a feeling Robin would top me off no mater how many times I found the bottom of my glass. The last thing I needed was to get drunk; I could just imagine that it might affect me a bit like the morphine.

Finally, the quiet seemed to get to the puck.

"You need to talk to me, Cal. Please, don't let it fester…"

He was right. I had to tell someone. Niko, unfortunately for us both, was there for the big reveal. And, frankly, it was my brother's decision how much Promise needed to know and how much he wanted her to know. So that left Robin. And me.

I swallowed the last of my wine, let the shock of the liquid hitting my stomach shake through me, and took a really god' damned deep breath.

"Do you know what the word 'protandry' means?"


	3. The Third Trip

Title: Recovery

Author: ThirstySatyr

Rating: M, for language, violence, mild m/m sexuality, and squick content

Chapter 3/10: The Third Trip _or_ A Guide to Practical Breeding

Standard Disclaimer: Not mine. Rob Thurman's.

Note: This chapter is where my story gets farthest away from the canon created by _Deathwish._ It is, however, one of my favorites.I wanted so badly to put this chapter in _Healing, _but realized that it would have totally borked the flow. I think I may have concocted this story solely so that I could put it somewhere. – Think _Jurassic Park_, only more violent. And, maybe just a little sexy. But only a little.

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Thanks to my time with Darkling, I knew a bit more about the Auphe then your average monster bumping in the night. Everything that parasite had known, I knew. Everything it had thought or remembered, I remembered, even if it was vague behind a healer-induced haze. The knowledge, however imprecise, had given my nightmares a bit more material to work with. But it also gave me some insight. And with knowledge being power, when two days ago that was really a week ago I ripped myself a gate to Tumulus, I was still horribly unprepared.

It turns out Auphe are protandry; big, fancy word, I know. Not one I would have bothered to be familiar with given any say, but it was one that Darkling had gotten to know rather well. What it meant was what made it powerful; thanks to that male Banshee, I knew that my creature-feature cousins may have all started out life as male, but not all of them necessarily ended it that way. When the need to hear the pitter-patter of little talons would thump in their collective blood, one unlucky candidate would change, and the story of the birds and the bees would get scary. This change from male to female was ultra rare, what with the Auphe being so long lived. And as my brother would happily inform anyone listening, the longer you live the less there is a need to breed. Pleasantly deterrent, that.

But that wasn't the only reason the world was spared more than the occasional Auphe suffering through the terrible twos, or help us all, teenaged angst. Even more frightening than the thought of the Auphe breeding, was what they did to each other when it happened. Something about the smell of the new female, especially once pregnant, sent the rest of the species into a fit of mindless, frenzied violence. Whether it was hormones, or pheromones, or some other kind of moans, the males just went street-rat-psycho when a female was around. Some of the worst Auphe massacres were triggered by the presence of a female. And no one was safe when the bloodlust hit; not other Auphe, not the female, and definitely not the rest of the world. Even the Auphe, a species whose culture was based in gleeful destruction, were wary of these bouts of berserker rage. There was no channeling the carnage, and no stopping it so long as the female's scent was in the air.

So, on the rare instance that an Auphe would find himself newly a herself, she would hide. After she'd picked a male and beaten him unconscious, that is. With the half-dead soon-to-be daddy in tow, the female would skip dimensions. And once the male had served his purpose, the female would leave him to die of the many wounds it had taken to keep him "cooperative".

And then she would wait, growing weaker by the day. Tumulus might smell of death and be as teaming with life as the surface of the moon, but it suited the Auphe perfectly. The air, the dirt, what little life there was other than the Auphe all worked to keep them as healthy as a vicious monster could hope. Extended absences from their home world took a toll. Add to that the parasite using her for nutrition, and the female's days were numbered.

Four months would pass and the Auphling was born. Three more, and he was all grow'd up. And just like the rest of the species back home, the smell of female destroyed what little self-control the Auphe bothered with. Where once was a female Auphe, there was a meal. And after matricide and cannibalism, the third act of an Auphe life was to go back home, tearing the space between worlds like it was flesh. Where a normal gate needed knowledge of the other side, instinct would always lead this one true.

I was unlucky enough to know all of this because, about a hundred and fifty years ago, Darkling asked a stupid question. It was an understandable question, though; how fast did the little Auphe learn their gates? Knowing that might speed the education of the human-hybrid they had wanted so badly, and eventually spawned in me. The biological history lesson had been drilled into his head with painful clarity, each bloodlust-frenzy relayed with affectionate detail. Ah, the good old days; the devastation, the death, the extinction of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. As much as he'd been amused by the stories, Darkling figured out fast the benefit of not asking too many questions.

Because of that fucking lizard, I knew this. I also knew that, six years ago, there had been ninety-seven Auphe remaining in the fold. There might have been one or two rouges, living away from the hive, but it wasn't likely. Then two years ago a building, some automatic weapons, a couple swords, and a double-crossing double-agent happened, and there were a hell of a lot less than ninety-seven.

At the time we'd thought, hoped really, that every last one of them had been caught in the collapsing warehouse. That kind of luck had never been ours; but, they had been pushed to the very razor's edge of extinction. And with the threat of oblivion breathing down their neck, the demand for a new generation started screaming the Auphe name.

So they took Niko. I could recognize the logic in the move; if our mother had been compatible with Auphe genetics, why not one of her sons? It was logical. It was also the worst possible thing that could have happened. Bad enough that I had been there, and thanks to a possession and a healer friend, I remembered some vague impression of those two years. I came back rabid, waiting for the world to disappear from beneath me and drop me back into the nightmare. Every soft touch felt like a lie, every comfort felt like a fantasy; after Tumulus, anything less than malevolent pain was in question.

The only thing I'd been able to count on had been Niko. Then he was touched by Tumulus, and even he was in question.

One moment we'd been staking out a supposed haunting, me and Promise, Niko and Robin. My team had taken the back of the decaying up-state New York mansion, enjoying the late spring evening and scenting the woods for danger. Niko and Robin had gone in the front, quiet as the ghosts we hunted. Thus far the job had been boring; no haunts, no spooks, and no monsters. I was beginning to suspect that the crack-pot who'd hired us was exactly that – a crack-pot. Then something went wrong.

I felt it even before I heard it. I felt it even before Promise heard it. When the air gets still despite the wind, when a chill appears where a balmy May evening had been just a second before. It was that clammy feeling that comes when a man you know is no one's uncle just sits and patiently watches on a park bench. It was an instinct; something was wrong. Then the pull lanced its way through my gut.

We were moving for the house before I understood what I already knew. When the glass of a window broke free around me, I realized what I was running toward. Deep in the house, closer to the front. I must have been gating every few steps, because I reached Robin a full stride before Promise did. The room was in shambles, and there was no sign of my brother.

Promise pulled Robin up from the floor, wiping the blood from his eyes with no gentleness. "Where is Niko?" If she had been any one but Promise, she would have screamed it.

The puck was slow to reply, his eyes obviously having trouble focusing, the muscles in his face still trying to recover from the shock of the five wounds that opened him up from temple to jaw. I didn't need to hear his answer though; I already knew.

"Auphe."

My one word fell into the room like a stone. I could smell the sweet, electric tang they'd left behind. The air felt like the passing of lightning, dancing over my skin, making my heart jumped and thrashed like a race horse. I could feel the remnants of the gate, only seconds dead. I looked at Robin where he lay half crumpled on the ground, Promise still kneeling beside him. Just from the smell I knew the gate had opened behind him; the talons would have reached as if from nothing, sliding silently for his throat. He was lucky he still had a head.

"They took him…" I breathed.

The horror on Robin's face confirmed the awful truth. "I… I'm sorry Caliban. We… three of them… from nowhere! They didn't try to fight, they didn't… nothing… they just grabbed him and…"

He should have saved his breath. I wasn't really listening.

My brother. Stolen. By the Auphe. The world was spinning, turning inside out. Reality was suddenly unstable, fracturing along seems I'd thought long healed. Had this all just been a nightmare, a figment of my imagination? Had six years passed, but only in my mind? Would two days go by before I saw my brother again, a scarred shadow of who he once was?

_No!_ I shook off the sinking horror. History was not repeating itself, twisted with sick humor. My brother was not a monstrous experiment, designed for skills dreamed of only in perverted fairy tales. There were no gates that would come to his call… just me.

Then I felt it, before I heard it. A gate ripped open in the room with us, spilling two Auphe onto the floor before closing with a crack. The gun in my hand appeared without my thinking, just pointed at one of the white-blonde heads. From the corner of my eye I could see Promise and Robin, both crouching, weapons drawn. For a long second the newest monsters in the room didn't move, just lay trembling on the floor. Then, with motions that were painful to watch, they began to crawl away from each other.

Painful seconds ticked by as we watched them crawl, moving like sting-less marionettes. My whole hand ached from not pulling the trigger, but something, something un-nameable stilled the breath in my lungs and held me static.

"They're injured…" Promise's mystified voice whispered through the stillness of the room.

As logical an explanation as it sounded, I knew she was wrong. They looked it though; covered in ugly black bruises, their usually fluid joints snapping as they crawled, each one breathing shallow and too fast. They looked broken. But, there was something, nagging, at the back of my mind. I knew this… somehow I knew what I was looking at.

"Breathe…"

I nearly jumped out of my skin when one of them spoke, languidly swinging its head to look at me. There was a peaceful instability in its eyes that struck me like something physical. More so than any Auphe before, this one shook something in me. Though I didn't yet recognize it, in hindsight I understood; I was looking at a martyr.

"Breathe…" it hissed again, speaking directly to me. Then its livid eyes closed heavily, and the narrow slits of its nose shifted with breath. It seemed to be drinking in the air, filling itself with as much as it could. And without meaning to, I did the same.

Then that something in the back of my mind clicked. The smell; I could feel it wrapping around my senses, urging my heart to beat faster, bringing a manic heat all the way to my fingertips.

"Sweet, isn't it cousin?" the Auphe hissed, its native language tearing at the inside of my ears.

My breath caught in my throat, my voice failing me.

It smiled at me then, amused. Its head even tilted down, a small purr of laughter escaping, though its eyes never left me. So when what little sanity was left in its eyes blinked blithely out of existence, I had the horror of an unobstructed view.

Before my mind could react, the Auphe seemed to explode. There was nothing but violence as talons and teeth swallowed my vision. The gun was knocked from my hand quickly, and a blade instinctively took its place. But I couldn't keep up. The sounds coming from behind me let me know Robin and Promise were having just as much trouble with their berserker.

And I was about to leave them mine.

As much as I knew Promise and Robin were family, to be defended and protected… Niko was a part of me, the better part of me, the one that tried so hard to be human. Niko was stolen, and I had to get him back.

I did my best to wound the Auphe thoughtlessly attacking me, slicing at any flesh that held still for even a moment. Not that he cared. There was no mind behind those magma eyes anymore, no person in there to care for the injuries. So I spilled as much of his blood as I could, trying to keep as much of mine under my own skin.

"Promise! Robin!" I screamed over the clash of metal and talons. They battled on, and so did I, each of us trying to gain an upper hand. Eventually their eyes found me.

I struck wildly at the Auphe attacking me, driving him back minutely. In the back of my mind I felt the gate growing, just below the floor boards, like a leviathan surfacing from the black of the ocean. All I had to do was call it and it would breach the floor and swallow me whole. Down, back into a hell I'd prayed never to see again.

When it began to rise, something of the gate must have reached the Auphe I fought, because it paused at exactly the wrong moment. With a splash of cold, acidic blood, the arm clawing for my face spasmed and fell limp, traveling with me to Tumulus. I took a moment to hope that a missing arm would at least prove distracting.

My re-acquaintance with solid ground rocked through me like a hammer blow, slamming my teeth together and dropping me to my knees. As the smell of rot and death began to fill my mind, as the feel of grit and sand crunched sharply under me, I hoped Robin and Promise would forgive my abrupt exit. I also hopped they'd survived to do it. But slowly, so slowly, I opened my eyes, and stopped caring about anything other than finding my brother and staying alive.


	4. Abrupt

Title: Recovery

Author: ThirstySatyr

Rating: M, for language, mention of non-con, violence, mild m/m sexuality, and squick content

Chapter 4/10: Abrupt

Standard Disclaimer: Not mine. Rob Thurman's.

Note: There was no gentle way to do this…

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"Now there's just fourteen. Maybe a few less…" my shoulder moved sharply as I tried for a nonchalant shrug.

The look on Robin's face was slack, and just a little horrified. It was clear he understood exactly what I meant. Once the Auphe had been legion; innumerable, uncountable, infinite and a whole bunch of other words that meant a big fucking number. Then there were only eighteen, and the demand for a new generation screamed in their blood. From their own snarling lips I knew that, of the eighteen, an unheard of fifteen had shifted gender. Niko and I had killed two while we were... away. And thanks to Robin and Promise, two of the remaining males were nothing more than ash in a now burnt-down house in upstate New York. One could only imagine where the last male was. Probably far, far away from the new females, taking no chance that he would further damn his own endangered species.

"While you were gone… there…" Robin broke into the heavy silence.

I looked up at him, trying not to glare through my lashes. The fight with the Auphe had only been two days ago for the puck. I could still see the long jagged lines along the right side of his face, red and ugly, but surprisingly healed. Within the week they would be gone, leaving just a really bad memory.

I had abandoned them; my skin crawled with the knowledge. Even with one suddenly missing an arm, I'd still left Promise and Robin with two berserker Auphe; all violence, all madness. They were lucky to have survived. But by the look in his eyes, the puck didn't blame me. And knowing her, Promise probably didn't either; I had brought Niko back, after all.

Not quite as whole as one could have hoped, though.

"While you were there…" Robin continued, fighting with himself to keep eye contact. "They… they hurt… you…"

It was as much a question as a statement. He didn't want it to be true, so he was asking me to make it untrue. For as old as Goodfellow was, sometimes it was damned impressive how he could self-delude.

"No one likes saying the word 'rape'. I get that." I answered, trying to keep the strain out of my voice.

Because no one liked thinking it either. And no one liked living it. Too bad for the both of us, my brother and I would share that nightmare from now on.


	5. Mixed Signals

Title: Recovery

Author: ThirstySatyr

Rating: M, for language, violence, mild m/m sexuality, and squick content

Chapter 5/10: Mixed Signals

Standard Disclaimer: Not mine. Rob Thurman's.

Note: Talk, talk, talk...

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What had worked for me all those years ago, and what had kept me sane after Darkling, was a profound ability to bury, squash, deny, delude, and suppress. I wasn't quite as good at it now as I'd been then. At 16 it had been a mind still relatively fresh and malleable, still capable of replacing the pieces that had to be locked away. With Darkling, it had been the intervention of a friend, a healer so powerful, he was able to force my brain around the newest pot hole of the abyss. But now; I wasn't quite as good at it now as I'd been then. I remember the outline, and most of the plot, certainly more than any one would ever need this side of a straight jacket and happy pills – but the details were thankfully indistinct.

We finished off a fourth bottle of wine right as Robin got as much out of me as he could stomach. The whole thing was ugly, never minding that I was vague on the details, because... well, I was vague on the details. In the end, though, I was kind of a fucked-up proud of him for listening to as much as he had. I could tell what he was thinking; if I could survive living it, he could survive hearing it. It was a brothers-in-arms type of thing. I understood; I still thought it was really damned stupid.

So when he leaned over to fill my glass again, I put my hand over the mouth and gave what I could of a polite smile. It was probably just a whole lot of teeth, but I think he understood.

"Caliban, really," Robin chided. "You are not nearly drunk enough."

"No," I replied with my favorite word. "I am just barely drunk, which is way past enough. We've gone through four damned bottles, Goodfellow. Aren't you offended that you've wasted that much perfectly good wine on someone like me?" After a brief pause I let out a belch so wet sounding it kind of grossed me out, effectively highlighting my status as wine-unappreciative trailer trash. Luckily the sound covered the delicate clink of my wineglass cracking as I "set" it on the crystal table a little too hard. Not that the puck seemed to notice.

"Screw sober," he declared with a smile and a grand dismissive wave. "I can buy and waste as much wine on you as I like. I'm your friend, remember?"

"Loman, really?" I tried once more for nonchalant, carefully pushing my glass farther from the bottle still poised to pour. "I've got no taste, I've got no class. You're wasting the wine. God knows, your wasting your schmooze… Give me some tap water and ignore me; I'll feel like an honored guest, I promise."

Ah sarcasm, my lifelong friend; if I can hide behind on no one else, I can hide behind on you.

The puck didn't react for a moment, going oddly quiet and just a little tense. Not exactly the reaction I was expecting. It was the sudden change of colour that really let me know something was up. Where his cheeks might be appropriately described as rosy by someone far more literate then I, the red they were currently turning had me torn between "tomato" and "angry". The vein that appeared in his left temple, thumping away like a trapped animal, settled me on "angry".

"Damn it, Caliban!" Robin suddenly spat at me. "I'm trying to apologize!"

All I could do was stare. Apologize? That didn't make sense; what did he have to apologize for? I was the one that had abandoned them, leaving him and Promise to an uncertain and possibly grotesquely violent fate. I was the one that couldn't tell my friend from my brother and went all grabby. And, let's not forget, to cover my laps in judgment I was the one that took a trip down crazy lane and tried to inefficiently beat the puck's head in. Clearly I was missing something.

Unfortunately for me, my stupid eventually made it out my mouth, "Uh..."

"Bloody Hades, do you think I traipse around spending my free time molesting the helpless? Do you really think me that profane?" he practically yelled it at me as he leaned abruptly forward, wineglass and wine bottle striking the table with a startling crack. The delicate bowl of the glass actually fissured, gently weeping what was left of his wine into a puddle of red on the table.

"Of course I'd hoped," Robin rushed on, "But not with any real hope. Despite all my advances, and because... Because you would call me friend, because you would know me, I knew. No chance in hell. No chance in _New York_ I'd actually seduce one of you, one of the Leandros' bothers."

I wanted to stop him, I wanted to get a word in edgewise, but he just kept going. And it hit me that I wasn't nearly as almost-drunk as I should have been; mostly because I'd only had four glasses (large glasses, admittedly) from those now empty bottles. Not to imply that Robin was drunk; the puck's constitution was far superior to four bottles of wine. But tipsy was a definite possibility.

"But there you were. You were warm. And you were close. And you were… you were…" He finally paused, dragging in a deep breath as the manic self-deprecation faded, and the quiet seriousness from earlier returned, "You were drugged out of your fucking mind, and I let my libido think in the place of my brain. So instead of being your friend, I was your molester. I took advantage of you."

He sounded so sad, so remorseful, and so damned sincere that I knew at least part of it was an act. He was sorry, I could hear it; he genuinely hadn't wanted to do anything to hurt me. But, underneath it, I could hear how much he wished it hadn't been hurtful. And it hadn't been – not the way he thought, anyway. But at the moment, I just wasn't up to talking about any of this, and certainly not about how any of this "made me feel". Freud and every other psychoanalyst could kiss my pasty, half-breed ass. I needed out.

"Goodfellow," I snapped, my tension making it come out like a bark. "Shut up."

My less than sympathetic response seemed to snap him out of it. At first his expression was worried and confused. Then it shifted, and it was clear that I'd received about as much repentance as I was going to get; there was even a raised eyebrow for good measure.

I sighed deeply and tried to make my next words come out a little less hostile.

"Don't apologize. It wasn't you. I was… I reached and… It's not your fault. Kay? It's not your fault, I just…" I stammered, squeezing my eyes shut against the abruptly wavering room. "Fuck. Just leave it."

My words fell out of me in a stilted mess, and I hopped the puck understood what my brain couldn't find the words to say. I also hoped he didn't notice how withdrawn I'd become. Like I was trying to pull away from the air around me, my arms wrapped tight, hugging my elbows as close as I could. I didn't want to have this conversation. I didn't even want to be in the apartment anymore. Everything was too close, too sharp, too much. And then there was the shaking; I didn't notice it until it reached past my legs, and by then it was too late to stop it. Slowly the tremors traveled up through my core and out into my arms. I was trembling, and I hated it.

It was this, this being inside. Being inside and talking about things I shouldn't be talking about, talking like words made any sense. Nothing made sense. Not the couch I sat on, not the wine sitting in my stomach like ichor, and not the hum in the back of my head letting me know that I shouldn't worry about it too much - none of this, not a damn part of it, was real anyway.

"Caliban…"

My head came up with a snap so sharp I felt my brain hit the back of my skull.

Robin was staring at me, eyes wide and more than a little concerned.

_Fuck. _I felt like I was trying to wake up, like I was back in Promise's guest room still fighting down the morphine. My skin was just too fucking tight and I knew I had to get up. I couldn't sit here anymore, just sitting and waiting for something to happen. I had to move and fight and maybe scream. I had to go, had to go outside. Had to go out. Had to get out.

..._h__ave to get out_..._ have to get out_…

"Cal!" Robin's voice hit me again, as shocking as his hand suddenly gripping my shoulder.

I didn't realize that I'd closed my eyes again until they snapped open, my vision filled with pale gray silk and mother of pearl buttons. Damn, when did he get that close? Why hadn't I heard him get up?

"You're not really back yet, are you?" the puck asked, the concern I'd seen having found its way to full-fledged worry.

Back yet. I knew what he meant, and he was right. I wasn't back from Tumulus yet, at least not all of me. Though my body might get clear from that hell, there were pieces of me that took longer to escape; pieces like my mind. As far as I'd come since 14-years old, it wasn't far enough to get away from my nightmares. Tumulus had taken me again and worse yet, it had taken my brother too. When Tumulus had let me go twice before, twice and oh-so reluctantly, my brother had been there to anchor me back to earth. But this time, he wasn't here. This time he might be sinking as fast as me… and he _wasn't_ fucking _here_.

I tried to answer Robin, but my voice caught. So I just nodded.

"That's why you reached for him. He brings you back. Brings you home, doesn't he?" the puck asked. There was so much sympathy in his voice that I wanted to cry. Because the darkness in the back of my head was telling me that none of this was real. Everything I was hearing was a lie; the sympathy, the empathy, the compassion. It was all just a fantasy, my emptiness hissed, and painful reality would claim me again soon enough.

"How can this be real?" I turned to what I was struggling to remember was my friend. "Kittens aren't real when you're in hell, Goodfellow. Friends aren't real when you're in hell. Pillows, and bath tubs, and Disneyland don't fucking _exist_ when you're in hell."

I stopped a moment, trying to swallow against the burn welling up around the words. "Family isn't real when you're in hell. And… being here, being not in hell…" the words tried to keep coming, but I just couldn't. I couldn't say it; couldn't say out loud how close I was to being genuinely padded-room crazy. I couldn't admit, even to Robin - even to someone old enough to understand the true meaning of 'alone' - just how little grip I actually had left. Because, being not in Tumulus felt a hell of a lot like slipping back into Tumulus.

"So what do I do? What do I fucking do to be normal again?" I spit the words, wishing I could spit out the urge with them. "I try to make moves my own god-damned brother! Nice and fucking normal, Caliban!"

I tore out from under the puck's hand at that, staggering up to my feet and toward the door. This was not happening. I was not doing this, was not fucking saying this.

Robin moved like he usually didn't, using his truly inhuman speed to reach the door before me. Then he was standing there, legs braced, blocking my way. He was determined to keep me here. Almost as determined as I was to leave. I charged for the door and shoved him aside, not caring if I damaged him or his damned fancy shirt.

At least, that's what I tried to do. When I got within inches, my hand already reaching to clear my path, I froze. My arm just wouldn't obey, was flat out refusing to move the last inch to actually touch him. If I touched him, if I pushed him, if he really was trying to keep me from running blindly into the streets, then this was real. And this was not how I needed to come back.

"Let me go…" I breathed, still frozen.

"You're not trapped, Cal." He answered evenly.

"Then get out of my way and let me leave. I don't need to hear it, puck. I already know."

"Know what?"

"What you think!"

"You have no idea what I'm thinking." Robin spoke softly, "I'm not judging you, Cal."

"Why the hell not!" I screamed back. "It's easy. Promise had no trouble…" I backed away from him as I spoke, retreating away from my own words.

"Look at me!" I demanded, striking my chest so hard I knew I'd have a bruise. "Not monster enough keep him safe… And not human enough to… to not…want…"

The angry energy spilled out of me in a rush, and I collapsed back onto the couch, trying desperately not to puke on my shoes. This was so not going well. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe I _had_ had too much to drink. Staring at the plush carpet between my feet, I tried to remember how long you were supposed to wait for morphine to completely leave your system; was it a few hours, a few days?

"Promise has her issues," Robin spoke, still standing between me and the door. "For as much as she is outside of what is common, she wants quite badly to belong. She has allowed her understanding of what is right and normal to become… narrowed."

"Oh, so it's prejudice that she has a thing against incest?" The words snarled out of me and I didn't bother trying to soften them. I did not need intimacy advice from a _puck_ when it came to the subject of my brother.

The look on Robin's face shifted, and I wasn't subtle enough to understand the change. As he walked closer to me, still blocking an easy escape on my part, my instincts started to scream; there was something dangerous in that look.

"Fine. How is it then?" He asked, and I could hear the edge of his voice, like a blade whistling straight for me.

"You know," he continued, locking his eyes with mine. "Fucking your brother?"

Oh.

Uh.

Oh god.

My brain came to a grinding stop. If my mind had been a car there would have been stripes of burnt rubber, and smoke, and possibly the entire back axle somewhere behind me. Where a snappy, or even angry, response would have been, there was nothing but static.

Oh god.

I struggled around the buzzing emptiness to make words, but all I got were small gasps of sound. It felt like I'd been punched in the head, dazed and disoriented. The urge to vomit was back, and was damn near irresistible. There was a dryness eating at my eyes, and no matter how much I blinked, it refused to clear.

Oh god.

Finally my brain pulled enough sense together to produce a single word. I managed to forgo my current favorite in exchange for one a bit more directed.

"What?" I gasped, fighting down bile.

Robin signed heavily before he answered, his whole demeanor shifting; the aggression faded away to sympathy. "Cal," he started mildly, moving both our wineglasses aside to sit on the coffee table, "I know you have no intention of having sex with your brother."

He placed a hand on my shoulder as he spoke, gripping tightly and no doubt feeling the repulsed shudder that shot through me.

"I'm a puck," he finished with another lifted brow. "I know what _is_ sex and what isn't. So, don't imply otherwise."

I continued to stare at him blankly, giving serious thought to just puking on him.

"I'm sorry..." he continued gently, "But you are lying to yourself if that's what you think was happening. It wasn't. And I won't for a second believe otherwise. Your brother is a piece of you; quite likely a whole bloody half. You proved away any doubt of that two days ago."

Two days ago, when I'd abandoned him and Promise. When I'd deserted them. When I'd left them to die... my only help being the hope that they wouldn't. I tried to apologize but he cut me off before it got farther than my eyes.

"Please don't," he interrupted without any unkindness in his voice. "Don't apologize. And don't deny it; it would only be a lie. Promise and I... you've made us a part of a family; a real one, not something manufactured by money and lies. And that's something neither one of us has had in a very long time. But we're neither one of us children. We are not naïve, nor in the habit of self-delusion." He gave a small laugh at that, before continuing with compassion all but pouring out of him.

"Not _too much_, anyway. You left us to go after him – you had to. You were the only one capable of bringing him back. But more than that, Cal, _not _bringing him back would have been... would have been taking your own life. If you hadn't gone after him, if you hadn't gone to save him - it would have been an act of suicide."

He sidled slightly on the table, putting himself directly in front of me. Also, directly in the puddle of wine, though he didn't seem to notice. With slow and careful movements, he put his hands on both my shoulders and helped me to sit up.

"You are pieces of each other. If it were possible, I'd say your heart beat in his chest, just like his in yours. It may be cliché, but you are two halves of one whole. On blood, one body, two pieces of a single life. You weren't reaching for a tryst, Cal. You were reaching for a part of yourself."

I heard it then. Or maybe I just finally noticed.

"Cal..." his voice was soft around it.

_Cal_.

He'd been calling me Cal for a while now, consistently avoiding my full name. There was only one person who did that.

The trembling, that moments ago threatened to shake me apart, stopped abruptly when I felt his hand wrap around the back of my neck, warm and so almost familiar. Then his forehead met mine, and my breath went as still as the rest of me.

"I'm not your brother, Cal, but I am your friend. Let me help you come back."


	6. Not Quite

Title: Recovery

Author: ThirstySatyr

Rating: M, for language, violence, m/m sexuality, and squick content

Chapter 6/10: Not Quite

Standard Disclaimer: Not mine. Rob Thurman's.

Note: I love being non-linear. Also, for those who care, the Baby Bat is a Shel Silverstein poem.

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I nearly ran from the apartment almost a dozen times, and not always fully clothed. But each time the puck would fly past me, blocking the door and apologizing. And each time I would follow him back to his bedroom, fighting against the encroaching void and reminding myself that I cared for this bastard who was trying, for my own good, to get into my pants.

The first time I stumbled from his bedroom, I was missing a shoe, and clumsily pulling my shirt back over my head.

"Cal... damn it, Cal! I'm sorry. I swear I won't compliment your ass again. Scouts honor!" the puck had called after me with the utmost seriousness.

Just as he had started with all seriousness. When I'd first gotten up from the couch, Robin had been gentle, almost patronizingly so, walking backward and leading me by an unresponsive wrist. When he'd opened the door to his bedroom, the lights had been out, and I'd instantly been terrified. It wasn't the dark, though I knew too much darkness wouldn't be all that great for me just yet. It was more what the dark could be hiding; things that clinked, things that creaked, and god help me – things that buzzed could all be hidden away in that thick darkness.

When the overhead light had bilked cheerfully to life, I'd nearly ran. Big, bad monster-killer Caliban Leandros, just like that damned baby bat – turn on the dark, I'm afraid of the light. In this case, though, the light had revealed nothing. No long satin sashes tied to bedposts, no box of edible body paints on the dresser, no costumes with too many holes waiting on a chair back. It was a relief, but I was still jumpy.

Robin must have known, because he didn't let go my wrist until we were standing in the center of the huge room, the equally huge bed just a few feet away. Slowly he'd unbuttoned his shirt, exposing what I was tempted to call a store-bought gold tan, and all the while watching my face. I must have looked as jumpy as I felt, because when he finished the track of buttons and moved to pull the shirt off entirely, he suddenly stopped, leaving it open and hanging.

Needing something to do, I bent down and untied my shoes with suddenly clumsy fingers. My all-stars only put up a cursory resistance, and in seconds I was upright again and in need of another distraction.

The puck had only removed his loafers and belt while he watched me fight with my shoes, and stood, still mostly clothed. I shut my eyes tight and, not for the first time, wondered what the flying fuck I was doing.

The answering hiss from the back of my head, whispering poisonously that it didn't matter and that it wasn't real anyway, was all I needed for my eyes to fly back open. Trying to distract myself, I toed off one of my loosened shoes. I was shifting my weight to work off the other, when Robin reached out and began pulling my shirt slowly up my torso. Gooseflesh appeared over my skin as it was exposed to the air, keeping pace with the rising hem. His hands were comfortably warm against my skin, not blazing hot like I remembered Niko's being. I wondered distantly if that meant anything.

Robin had managed to get my shirt over my head, and I was working it slowly off my arms when his hands slid back down to my waist. Warm fingers traced the waistband of my jeans before slipping down the back. Past jeans and under boxers, his hands moved, following the curve of my body.

Then he licked his lips, let out a hum that sounded like he was judging an ice cream contest, and I was out the door so fast I might have left my pulse behind.

Comments about my ass not withstanding, I followed him back into the room determined to hold out.

The second time I ran for the door, I left both my shoes behind, along with my shirt. Robin flew past me like a blur, baring the door.

"Okay," he frowned at me. "No tongue. I get that. It makes sense. No tongue, equally as on the honor of scouts as no ass complimenting. Swear."

I led the way back to the bedroom that time, dragging my feet. I had to wonder, at this rate, would I ever get my socks off?

By the seventh or so return to his bedroom, I could tell the puck was getting agitated. I didn't blame him. Back and forth, up and down, mellow one moment and manic the next; my mood couldn't be tracked or predicted. I was okay with lips sweeping across a collar bone, but jumped at a palm brushing my nipple. Then I was okay with a mouth on my nipple, but so not okay with Robin's pride and joy pressing against my hip. I was doing okay being in Robin's bedroom, stripped down to boxers, and then suddenly I really wasn't. All he could possible know from all of this was that I was just as crazy as we'd always thought.

He'd been wrapped around me, his face buried in my hair, and I'd be trying my best to reciprocate. My hands had stumbled almost comfortably down his back, marveling at the smooth scars that traveled his skin. I'd felt my head fall, mouth touching shoulder, inhaling the warm earthly smell that had become soothingly familiar without my even noticing. Everything seemed to be going… okay. Then he shifted; it was a small move, subtle but insistent, bringing the narrow up-curve of my hips bones tightly between his, and pressing his arousal firmly against mine.

This time, when I twitched and started to pull away, he didn't let go, instead tightening his grip on my waist and practically growling against my ear. There was a primitive language in that sound, a demand and an insistence I understood perfectly.

Understood it, yeah, but really didn't like it.

Instead of flinching away, I yanked, coming out from under the puck's hands abruptly. Robin gaped at me a moment before reaching to pull me back. I stepped backward, just out of his reach, feeling my calves brush up against the bed; no place left to retreat. When he took a step toward me, reaching again for some part of me to anchor to, I started for the door, storming this time instead of running. I didn't bother avoiding him, letting my shoulder collide with him as I stomped past; I was too confused, too frustrated. I just needed out.

He grabbed me as I passed him, using me to regain his balance, and then instinctively pulled at my arms, pinning me in a fighter's hold. Though my elbows were nearly touching behind my back, the stretch didn't hurt; I was limber. The pull across my chest tingled, and my head fell forward with a jerk, my hair blotting out my vision; I hung there and felt almost… comfortable.

But I felt something else, too. Something like a flush, a breath of red in my ever present darkness. It was heat and danger, liquid and bloody. And so very, very hungry.

With a huge effort I squashed down the unfamiliar urge, and muffled the growl that was crawling up toward my mouth.

"Loman," my teeth clicked together as I snapped at the end of the word. "That's not a good idea."

It took a moment, and then Robin seemed to realize what I meant. He released me so quickly that I stumbled, just catching myself on the foot of bed. To hide the shaking in my arms, I shifted and let myself fall, slouching boneless on the edge of the puck's chocolate-chip coloured comforter.

Scrubbing roughly at my face, I tried not to sound too frustrated when I spoke. "This isn't going very well."

"No, it really isn't," he answered, and I felt the bed shifted as he sat down, not too close, beside me.

"Cal..." he started, then interrupted himself with a defeated sigh. "I never thought I would say this, but; I don't think I can seduce you."

And that was the problem. Soft and gentle, hard and tough; nothing was working, and everything made me uncomfortable. What did I expect; that Robin would magically stop being a puck, and would start being... something else? He was a puck; he was sex. He was playful. He was joy and passion. He was everything I didn't know how to cope with right now. With a wave of nausea, I realized that I was a slightly horrible person for asking him to be that something else, that something he could never become.

"I'm sorry..." I said from behind my hands, though I hoped he didn't fully understand why.

"Me too," Robin pat my back as he replied, the gesture everything we were when we weren't trying to have sex. 'Scuse me; trying to have _not-sex_.

"It wasn't like this," I tried to explain, letting my hands fall. "It wasn't..."

"Sane? Controlled?" then he paused, letting the most sympathetic sarcasm I'd ever heard fill out his voice, "Intentional?"

"Yeah... that," I answered weakly.

"Perhaps," he started after a long, thoughtful moment, "Perhaps we should just sleep. You should get some rest that isn't heavily drug induced. And I," he paused again, seeming to think very hard about his next words.

"I will sleep as well. I was asked by a rather incoherent and insistent brother of yours that I watch over you. There was even a threat; It was wonderful," he suddenly gushed like a lecherous school-girl. "He was about a thousand sheets to the wind on morphine at that point, mind you. And I'm sure he was going for a "or I'll fucking kill you", but he didn't quite get all the way through it." The flash of a predatory smile let me know just how little of the sentence my brother actually got through; it wasn't something I wanted to dwell on.

"I've decided to be optimistic, but that's neither here nor there." He was rambling in perfectly Goodfellow fashion. And calmed me the hell down, just like it'd been intended to.

"So that's why you were in the bed with me," I offered off-handedly. It made sense. But something else didn't. "You know, Loman, I'm pretty sure he didn't say 'watch over him, and be naked'..."

The puck smiled at that, recognizing my sarcasm as the positive sign it was. "Perhaps, not explicitly. But, as in all things, the slurred threats of inebriated, overprotective brothers are open to interpretation. Besides, I sleep more comfortably in the nude."

"Great for you. But if I'm sleeping here," I gestured at the bed sharply, "Ain't gonna happen."

"Cal, we were seriously considering doing the Catholic cousin of the nasty," Goodfellow waggled his eyebrows at me, his most salaciously insincere grin brightening up his face. "I can't possibly believe you're being bashful?"

"One," I replied with the vocal equivalent of a friendly punch to the kidneys. "Believe it. Two, please never say that again."


	7. Dreams

Title: Recovery

Author: ThirstySatyr

Rating: M, for language, non-con, violence

Chapter 7/10: Dreams

Standard Disclaimer: Not mine. Rob Thurman's.

Note: ! Please take note that the rating reasons have changed for this chapter. This chapter is ugly, and painful. Please, don't read this unprepared. Proceed with caution and a strong constitution. I really thought about not putting this note here; but, I'm no longer a very good judge of what is and isn't too much for most people. So, if you don't want to read it, but wish to continue with the story, the next chapter will be a synopsis.

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I slept.

I dreamt, and I remembered.

Tumulus.

I hit the ground with jaw cracking force, the circle of old-mansion floor that had traveled with me shattering at the impact. Splinters of the wood caught and tumbled, stolen away by a wind so fast, it tried to steal my breath as well. It screamed by me, racing up to a blighted yellow sky that was close enough to touch. There was a vastness behind me giving birth to that wind, a depth and a distance that I refused to see. Instead I concentrated on the cave mouth in front of me and the constellation of tiny lights that reflected back at me.

The lights were crystals, little black ones that glowed in the dry gut of the mountain. Because, as much as I refused to look behind and down, it was a mountain - one that had once been a volcano, angry and sullen. But now, all that was left was an eternity of caves, and those crystals. Crystals that distorted reality. Crystals that, when crushed and eaten, let the Auphe understand the warp and coil of time between their world and others. Crystals that, in their baleful glow, tore gates to flimsy tatters before they could be escaped through.

No gate could be held in these caves. No gate, no escape.

It didn't matter. Niko was in there. So I decided - the crystals didn't matter.

Without thought, I was running. The days slid by me like hours, barely registering in the darkness. I might have slept once, though I might have just lost consciousness. I crammed myself so tight into a deep crevice of rock I almost wasn't able to get out. The days, the hours, the running had dragged me down, and it was all I could do to find the crack, crawl in, and pray I wouldn't be found.

Waking was a transition from one darkness to another. I ignored the cramping in my muscles and the twisting ache in my stomach, and fighting my way free to the rock, I was running again. Tunnel after tunnel, cave after endless cave I ran, steering by instinct, picking my way by crystal light, and trying not to feel the thin air burning its way through my lungs.

None of it mattered, and it all happened in an instant, because I had to find him.

Then I did. And in a dark, sick, selfish part of me – I wished I hadn't.

Niko. He was unconscious, and so pale. All of him was so damned pale. Every last inch of him, pale and exposed to the air. And it... It was wrapped around him like a strangling vine, with sinewy legs disappearing under his hips, rolling him awkwardly, arching his back at a boneless, unnatural angle.

I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to know it. But I was transfixed.

So transfixed, I didn't hear the other Auphe until it crashed down on me, burying my face in the ground. Tacky sand filled my mouth as I struggled for breath, trying desperately not to suffocate in the taste of copper. Arms like steel wrapped around mine, casually knocking away the blade I'd been clutching like a lifeline. Legs of pure muscle fought briefly between my knees before pushing them wide, effectively ending my resistance. My hip joints were just star bursts of shooting pain, bone grinding on bone, as my muscles fought against an angle they were never built for.

Then there was stillness. The Auphe pinning me down didn't move, while every muscle I had strained, failing against strength I'd only inherited half of. Days of running, days without sleep or food or water, had led to this. My lungs burned as a dark inevitability crept slowly into my vision, stealing away the sand-filtered glow of volcanic crystals. With a horror so familiar I should have known its name, I realized that between one heartbeat and the next I'd failed. I was going to die, and worse, I wasn't going to save my brother.

His name was my last breath as I went limp under the weight of the undeniable.

The laugh that came from above me was a death knell. Then it changed, becoming a gravely, snarling purr. Like some great and terrible cat, the Auphe rubbed its head against the back of mine for an achingly long moment, before catching my ear in its teeth. With no gentleness, it pulled, twisting my head to the side, freeing my mouth and nose from the sand.

"Hello, cousin," it whispered over my shoulder, exhaling heavily against my face.

My frantic lungs sucked in air, barely tasting the ice of its breath.

Oh, gods.

The smell.

I was drowning in it, being filled by it. It was everywhere, forcing its way into my head, smothering every nerve. I was running, pinned to the ground and motionless. I was running; my lungs hurting from the exertion, adrenaline scorching like electricity in my veins, muscles burning, heart racing toward some exquisite explosion. Crimson poured thick over my sight, swallowing everything in blood. Exhaustion evaporated, and all that was left was hunger.

There was nothing but the heat, the red, and the swollen, pressing weight in my skull.

Want to hunt, want to tear, _need to kill._

"Yes," its voice snaked its way into my head, past the red haze enveloping me, twisting into it, making it burn hotter, higher. …_Need. To. Kill._

"Cousin. Brother," it whispered between slow, icy licks at my jaw. "You've found us. You've found your sisters."

I fought through the violence wrapped like warm, pulsing fur around my mind, urging me to hurt, urging me to hunt. I had to get past it, past the want for scalding blood on my hands, past the need for warm, torn flesh in my teeth. Past the frantic need to kill, and fuck, and kill...

Sisters; it said sisters. It was that smell. The intoxicating, enraging smell that had been in the mansion. The smell that had driven the Auphe there past the realm of sanity. The smell that was filling me, filling me to overflowing, spilling out over my skin. The smell of female Auphe.

Between one ragged breath and the next, she rolled off of me, dragging me with her. Without pause I was flung, only stopping when I found the cave wall. Jagged rock tore me open, leaving my whole side burning. For a short moment everything went quiet, and I was left unable to move, caught between the pain and the liquid frenzy coursing through my mind. Then the Auphe returned, joined by a second, and each taking one of my arms, I was dragged up the cavern wall.

"Now, to get you ready..." that voice found me again, stroking the heat burning low and hot in my gut. That voice like old earth, and sweet fear, and electricity.

Abruptly I was thrown forward, and I stumbled, still lost in my sight that was nothing but red. Arms quickly linked through mine, pulling my shoulders sharply back. I tried to pull away, but legs pushed mine wide, destroying my center of gravity. My body bowed, only upright because of the Auphe holding me still.

In bits and pieces, information slowly registered in my vision, working past the _urge_ throbbing in me like a second heartbeat. The Auphe that'd first caught me watched with a smile. I saw her, and with my new sight, I saw all the things I'd been too blind to see before.

She was perfect. The curve and twist of a ribbon on the wind, the razor song at the edge of a blade, the flicker of light off shattered glass, the beautiful finality of death. She was absolutely fucking perfect, and I wanted nothing more than to rip into her. I strained forward as she stalked toward me, barely feeling my joints pop and grind. The one holding me gave no slack, even laughing as I struggled. But I had to try; she was taking too long, moving too slow.

When she finally reached me, she placed a hand on my chest, just out of reach of my snapping teeth, and I could feel that corpse-over-gravel purr sliding against my skin. Cautiously, she moved closer, slowly pressing her hips into mine.

I lunged for her throat, _so close, so fucking close, _andthe Auphe holding me back ran a cold hand into my hair. And with a brutal yank, she held me still, stopping my every movement.

I was caught between them, burning away and drowning in the scent. With each moment I couldn't move, the frenzy built in me, crawling up my spine, saturating my brain. I was shaking, quivering, shuddering against the hands holding me back. I needed to move; absolutely, fucking _needed_ to move before this rage ripped me apart from the inside. And all she did was laugh, her voice ringing through the cavern. Then I felt one of her hands snake between us, sliding between the sweet pressure of her hips against mine.

With a flash of light through my vision, she shoved hard up into my body, grinding against my pelvic bone. From my lungs down was nothing but a sinking cold, and it was all I could do to keep the scream in, letting it tangle viciously with the bile rising in my throat. _Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill_...the red haze chanted in me, the pain making it louder.

Then I felt talons digging through the fabric of my jeans, pressing ever so gently, ever so slowly against my flesh. When her hand pulled violently away, large pieces of my clothing went with her.

The air was cold, even through the tattered remnants of my boxers. But it was worse, so much worse. The pain and the rage, the roiling fog gnawing hungrily on my mind – it made me _want_, and one particular part of me took that want literally. Because, there I was, almost erect.

The Auphe in front of me noticed, and flashed a chainsaw grin. With slow, careful movements, she stepped back and placed her hands on the outside of both of my thighs, claws just pressing through denim and into my flesh. And with even pressure she dragged the razor points down, scoring away the top layer of skin.

It was so precise, so intentional, that it broke through the last of my silence. The sound ricocheted through the cavern, and the Auphe only laughed, casually picking at the denim bits caught on her claws.

Three more times she clawed me – across my shoulders, over my kidneys, and down my stomach - each as precise as the first, each building the fire in me, each ripping my voice from me in ragged screams. All the while she smiled and laughed, pulling away the remnants of my clothes like unwrapping a gift. It was bloody, fucking Christmas.

Then she looked into my eyes, and something changed in hers. She looked, almost, confused. Roughly she grabbed at my straining throat, almost cradling my jaw, and the smell of my blood on her hands was heady.

"Do you… see me?" she asked, the rasp of her voice uncertain.

I couldn't answer at first, taking two tries to force words out past my swollen tongue.

"Yeah, I fucking see you, bitch." I spat back, letting the murderous rage in me have voice. I saw her, every wicked, hideous, beautiful, perfect line.

Her magma eyes narrowed, and the one holding my arms growled deep in her chest. Neither was happy with my response.

"The need isn't on you?" the one holding my arms snapped, wrenching my head back so roughly my vision blinked white, and black, before returning to sullen, hateful red.

The one in front of me grabbed my, now, more than partial erection, squeezing and shaking until my body spasmed against a dry heave. "This! This isn't the need?" she snarled, just an inch from my face. Her voice tore at my ears, dragging at the bloody fire behind my eyes.

She let go of me with a sharp jerk, dragging another animal sound from me.

"My smell is in you," she exhaled sharply against my face.

"I've touched every trigger," she flexed clawed hands, covered candy-apple red in my blood.

"The need should be on you. You should be lost in it. But you see me," she paused a moment, her whole face suddenly twisting in what I could only image was disgust.

"Goody for me…" I slurred around my swollen tongue.

"This can't be," she carried on, ignoring my garbled sarcasm. "Unless you aren't... no. No!" This time she screamed, her fury and frustration tangible.

When she turned back to me, there was death in her eyes.

"Flawed, cousin. You are broken! You are false!" She snarled, hand slamming back between my legs with sickening force, while her sister ground my wrists together, propping me up for the onslaught.

"Can't be proper Auphe for your sister," she continued to scream. "Can't be a proper father. Can't even try!" She spat the words in my face, squeezing her taloned hand around my horrifyingly persistent erection. I wanted to scream, I wanted to vomit. I wanted to tear her a-_fucking_-part.

"It won't perform again," a third voice suddenly interrupted.

The two Auphe holding me paused, relaxing just enough for my breath to shutter back into my lungs. The hold touching me pulled her hand away, dismissing me for the moment. My body grasped at the reprieve desperately, and I let the Auphe holding me up take all of my weight. But as the pain receded, the red haze eased, and the part of me that understood words slowly crept to the surface.

In the hurt and the rage, I'd almost forgotten about the third Auphe. Almost forgotten her, pale flesh startling against dark sand, her long legs wrapped like a death wish around my brother…

Perform, she'd said. Again.

No...

Before the thought could finish, a wave of darkness - of chill, blessed emptiness washed though me. It muffled the rage, cooled the fire in its nothingness. The darkness whispered how it wanted to save me, wanted to take this away, wanted to keep me from knowing what those words meant. It was my void, my own personal brand of madness. Like the oldest of friends, it had been with me since I was sixteen, swallowing my first trip to Tumulus, swallowing my time as Darkling. And now, like the best of friends, offering to swallow this. It would be so easy, the nothingness promised; it would take the burn, take the pain, and take the knowledge. I didn't have to know this.

_Not yet,_ I answered the emptiness, while I called the burning rage a little closer. I had to know, at least for now. I had to understand those words, as much as I didn't want to.

My brother. Perform. Again.

"The meat worked for me," the one holding my arms hissed, oblivious to the battle being waged in my skull. I could almost hear her properly now, the monster and not the perfectly beautiful weapon that for a moment they had all been. Her voice was deeper then the others', rumbling low and smoky against my back; the bitch was a tenor. There was something more, though; a serration at the edge of her words that I couldn't quite place.

"Is it broken already?" she pressed her cheek against my straining neck and asked, gloating.

My very human stomach roiled, desperately trying to not hear what she meant. I didn't want to know. And the darkness told me I didn't have to know. _No, just a while longer_; I wanted to give in, but I needed to know which of them had touched him, because I had to know which to kill first.

_Not yet,_ I repeated to the emptiness.

"Did you break it?" the third one spat, gesturing at my unconscious brother. The instant rage that lit her face made me think this wasn't the first time the Tenor had done something provoking, pushing buttons and stepping on toes. When I felt her shift against my back, making her slight frame even smaller, ready to use me as a shield, I was positive I was being dragged into a fight started long before I'd arrived.

"I rode it," she let slip poisonously over my shoulder. "My way seemed effective…"

Her words seemed to further rile the third Auphe, causing a fine shaking to start in her limbs.

"You can try with this one," the Tenor offered helpfully, releasing her grip in my hair and rubbing at my chest in an animal, possessive way. "You failed with the sheep… you might be able to make this one's Auphe parts work."

The other female let out an incoherent bark, and started forward, ready to rip through me if that's what it took to tear the Tenor's throat out. This was it; I was going to be killed by sibling rivalry.

"Stop!" the last Auphe snapped, her voice brutally final. More impressive than the sound of her, was that the other Auphe listened; the one holding me who had already raped my brother, and the one charging who'd been in the process of raping him.

_Oh god..._

"You," the leader barked at the one still pressed against my back. "Did you break it; did you break our chance?" each word came out clipped and jagged. She was absolutely terrifying.

"No, sister," the deep voice came from over my shoulder, subdued now, the needling tone long gone. "I did nothing to purposely break it."

"Did it work when you used it?" the other pressed, taking a menacing step closer.

"Yes, sister," came the quick answer.

"Truly?" the leader snapped again, her hand darting past my cheek to catch the tenor's jaw. "It finished in you? You may yet be with spawn?"

"Yes, sister. It is possible," the one holding me replied, her deep voice shaking at the edges.

"Fine," she dismissed with a flick of her wrist, and her attention turned to the third Auphe. "You; if you can not trigger it, stop trying. If you fumble, you could damage it permanently. Your turn is done…"

Gods, I didn't want to know this. And I didn't have to.

The madness was there, pressing against the inside of my skull. My quiet, emptiness; and crouched beside it, like a rabid dog gnashing at its chain, was the bloody rage. The two together were a monster I knew I couldn't contain much longer. And they so wanted to get out. They were trying to reach me; they wanted to reach me. _Let me save you,_ the madness whispered with one voice. _Let me see with your eyes, so you won't have to. Let me feel with your hands, so you won't have to. Let me out, let me play._

_Let me live, so you don't have to._

The offer was tempting.

Then I saw her, the one who was controlling this whole nightmare, the one who had taken such joy trying to trigger me. She was moving slowly toward my brother. She was going to have her turn.

So I gave in. It didn't matter; we were going to die here. At least we would die together. And I was going to make damn sure my dear sisters came with us.

A switch flipped in my head, and a door I'd never known shattered open. Through it came the monster - my personal insanity, nurtured since I was 14, and the new, berserker rage of the Auphe. They coiled together, twisting into one creature, emptiness and madness. Boiling like a demon that even my family would learn to fear.

Oh, yes.

This was going to be fun. I was going to play. I was going to kill. Starting with the bitch that'd had the first 'turn' at my brother. It really was considerate of her to be so close.

With almost no effort, I folded my shoulders back just a little further, loosening her grip just enough for one of my hands to pull free. That hand found the flesh at the bottom of her ribs, and dug past skin with ease. Her resonating scream only encouraged me, bolstering my monster, egging me on. When her grip loosened entirely I dropped and spun, coming up behind her, my hand still fixed in the muscles of her chest. In one fluid motion I snapped her wrist as she tried to claw for my face, and then moved both my hands to her neck. The gray light of the gate felt cool as it pooled in my palms, before spilling out like water.

Then I pulled.

A wave of nausea told me the crystals did what I knew they would; tore my gate to shreds before it could anchor. Not that it mattered - her head hadn't really needed a destination.

And then there were two. I tossed the still twitching body aside without another thought, and moved toward the next sister, muscles and joints working how a part of me knew they shouldn't. But I didn't listen to that part, to the soft, human voice cowering in the back of my mind. Right now, all that matter was the kill.

The one who'd tried to trigger me was staring, shock holding her still. It had taken only moments, a few heartbeats, a held breath. I had a feeling she was going to take longer. At least I hoped so; I'd hate for her to be boring.

As I moved toward her, she suddenly came back to life, springing lithely into the air and over my head, the damp sand almost silencing her landing. I spun, but she was faster, and in a liquid swift motion, she tore my legs out from underneath me. A quick flash of pain rang up my leg, but I ignored it, trying to twist fast enough to face her. Her next blow connected hard with my shoulder, numbing me all the way to my fingertips.

Instead of pushing her advantage, she backed off, leaping back as if afraid I'd catch her if she stayed too close.

"False cousin, I'll make you work," she snarled from her safe distance.

Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I was back on my feet and shifting, giving myself a better view. The other Auphe was moving toward me, trying to hedge me in – then she stopped. The one who'd triggered me, the one I was so hungry for, motioned for her sister to stay back. I had to smile at that; bitch didn't want to share.

Then she growled; for me, just for me.

"I'll drive the need into you, _Cal-i-ban_," she drew out my name, biting off each syllable with the click of gun-metal teeth. "Make you my whore, my meat, until the last of your life bleeds out your eyes! I'll force your body to work for me, and your flesh will be the first meal of our spawn."

As she spat the last words at me, her eyes almost rolling back in her head with the power of her rage, I leapt. I struck her hard, catching her with the 'n' still rolling out between her teeth. She recovered quickly, but I was already on her. We tumbled and tore at one another, growls tangled with hisses of pain as skin yielded to claws and nails. It was terrible. It was heady. It was beautiful.

Finally I pinned her, my arms trapping her elbows against her ribs, one of my hands fisted in her spider-silk hair, pulling her head sharply back.

"Sheep! Meat! False cousin, you will die!"

She spat the words at me, but I only smiled, the mad-dog grin of my monster splitting my face. The look seemed only to fuel her fury. She fought against me, pushing and thrashing, trying to open space between our bodies.

_I wonder how he fought…_

The thought flitted through my brain, and the monster squashed it quickly, pushing it back into the darkness. There was nothing in me for thinking. There was only in me for her.

With a growl that crawled out from the burning center of me, I rocked back on my heels, and made her mine. I sunk into her; my flesh into her flesh, my teeth into her throat. Like thick, chilled syrup, her blood slashed into my mouth. The monster savored it; yes, give to me, give me your life, and I will take it. You are weak, you are lesser. You are dead; all that's left is to stop moving.

The screaming died away first. Her struggles took a little longer to slow, but they did. Of course they did; she was mine now. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw her hand moving toward my face. I didn't bother trying to stop it - she was too weak to hurt me anymore. Barely worth noticing, as I drank down her life. I was almost surprised when her palm stopped softly against my cheek; her skin was so cold, her touch was almost gentle, and a strange soothing, calm reached through the frenzy.

"Brother…" she breathed, her blood filling me while I filled her. "Auphe brother…" she said it like a caress, as cool as the hand against my face.

Those words were enough to stop me, freezing the violence that filled my head.

_Auphe brother…_

I jumped back, throwing her away from me as hard as I could. I tried not to know how I missed the feel of her, or how cold I was without her fleshed wrapped around me. I stared at her limp shape, paralyzed by a slow growing horror. Behind my eyes, my monster was unwinding; the Auphe rage was splintering off from the quiet emptiness that had always been there. And though they were no longer united, neither wanted me to see this. Two voices pressed against me, urging me to look away, demanding that I give in and let go.

But I saw her. I saw what the monster in me had done to her.

The monster.

My monster.

Me.

Without thinking, my knees found purchase on either side of her torso, sitting high on her ribs, and I struck at her with wild, uncontrolled blows.

"No more brothers! No more monsters! No more of me! No! More!"

I screamed it until I tasted blood at the back of my mouth. And with each word a fist buried in what used to be her face. I felt the bones, soft and flexible like a bird's, give under the touch of my knuckles. Faster than it should have happened, I turned her into a wet afterthought in the black sand.

From outside my narrowed vision, a muffled thump and a gurgled scream had my heart stopping, then jumping into my throat. I spun without thinking, coiled and ready to kill again, ready to fight until it finally ended me. But she was already on the ground, the other sister, the last of the three. Gasping and thrashing, arching like an electric current was racing through her. And midway down her back, on the right, where Auphe kept their heart, was my knife.

On the ground behind her was my brother, body barely being held up on shaking arms. He looked at me with eyes that wouldn't focus, and I could see fresh blood spill slowly from his mouth.

Reality's return was a hammer blow behind my eyes.

"Niko..." I breathed, and was next to him in a second.

The effort it must have taken to find my knife, to aim and sink the blade into Auphe flesh – it must have been everything he'd had. My hands slipped under him just as his arms gave up, and I tried to lay him down as gently as I could, fighting the nausea at the sounds that escaped. He was covered in wounds; deep punctures and long slashes. Some were fresh, but most looked to be days old. And some - ten even lines down his stomach, five down the length of each thigh and over the curve of each shoulder – looked like they'd been cut and re-cut more times than I could think about and stay sane. No single one looked life-threatening; but together, my brother looked like a battle ground. They'd wanted him alive, but they'd needed him pliable.

I couldn't do this. I couldn't look at him and know... this was my fault. If I'd just... If I'd just had the courage to leave, permanently, this would never have happened. If I'd just been brave enough to disappear, to turn the flash and noise against my own temple, this would never have happened.

I felt my eyes drift shut, and I didn't fight it. If I'd just had the strength to die...

"Ca... Cal..." My brother's voice. The sound tore through my darkness, letting it know that it might touch me – but it would never have me.

My eyes refocused on him sharply, the rest of the swallowing emptiness falling away. He was conscious, but only barely. The cool of his palm against my neck was shocking, and I almost flinched away.

Alive. We were both alive, and I needed to keep us that way.

I pulled away from him, probably faster then I should have, and turned to my fallen sister. None of the passion was left in me when I looked at her; the allure, appreciation, and beauty were all gone. She was just another monster.

With a vicious yank, I pulled my knife from her heart, feeling it catch and drag on bone. She convulsed once as it finished pulling free, and then went still. She wasn't dead yet, I could feel it; but I didn't have time to finish it. It was possible she might live, given food and time. But that was time I didn't have. I had to get him home, and I could feel time running out. Time, time, time, fucking time.

He was unconscious again when I lifted him, slinging one of his arms over my shoulders. As I took my first step forward, I found myself praying out loud that my ankle would hold. I had to get us out, into the open. Gates couldn't be made in these caves – the dim light of the crystals gloatingly reminded me of that.

Then I ran. Two days, maybe three. My brother faded in and out of consciousness, his breath always too quick and too shallow. They'd hurt him, they'd bled him, and now the very air was trying to kill him.

Pure terrified instinct led me back to the cave mouth, stumbling out under a now dusky, venom-yellow sky, trying desperately not to feel the burning pain screaming up my leg. I pulled my brother closer, and asked a God I knew didn't exist to, to please, _let me get him home._

I let the last of me pour into the gate, building it around us, letting it race along my skin. The last of my energy and the last of my instinct.

As the gray light snapped around us, and the pull began twisting in my gut, I just felt the ghost of claws reaching for my arm.


	8. Dreams Synopsis

Title: Recovery

Author: ThirstySatyr

Rating: M, for language, non-con, violence

Chapter 7.5/10: Dreams - Synopsis

Standard Disclaimer: Not mine. Rob Thurman's.

Note: This is a synopsis of the previous chapter, shortened for those who want to keep reading but might not have been comfortable with the violence, non-con, and dub-con that was depicted rather bluntly.

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Cal is dreaming.

Flash back to the mansion where the crew had been hunting ghosts, just after Niko had been kidnapped by the Auphe, and two crazed Auphe appeared to fight them. Cal travels by gate to Tumulus, arriving on a plateau, high on the side of a dead volcano. A cave entrance is right in front of him, illuminated by volcanic crystals that a part of him remembers as being bad news. Some part of him recalls that the crystals have the ability to warp reality, making it impossible to anchor a gate while in the caves. He runs into the caves regardless. He runs for days, passing out from exhaustion once, and eventually finds Niko.

His brother is nude and unconscious, an Auphe wrapped around him. Cal is stunned momentarily, and is attacked from above while distracted. The Auphe that landed on him quickly disarms him of his knife while smothering him in the sand, before turning his head and exhaling directly onto his face. Cal is suddenly overwhelmed by a violent madness, an almost irresistible urge to kill. Once the Auphe still holding him down reveals that it is female, as are the others with her, some small amount of control kicks back in, and Cal realizes that he is being affected by the berserker rage caused by the scent of a female Auphe. A second Auphe joins the one holding him, and they drag him to his feet before trying to "trigger" him into the breeding portion of the berserker madness. It is working to some degree, but Cal is still conscious and partially in control. When the first Auphe sees this, she assumes it to mean that he is "incapable" of the breeding urge, and becomes enraged at the thought that he may be sterile.

Just as she is about to injure him more, the Auphe that had been wrapped around Niko only a few minutes before, suddenly interrupts, complaining that "it won't perform again." Cal is horrified, finally realizing that these three females had every intention - and had already begun - to rape Niko in order to use him as breeding stock. With this knowledge, the amnesic insanity that had protected his mind since he was 16 tries to swallow him, as if offering to make everything go away. Cal resists the urge, instead welcoming the Auphe berserker madness as a way to make them pay for touching his brother. When the female that had been torturing him, in an attempt to get him in the breeding mood, starts to make her way to Niko for her "turn", Cal lets the violence loose. With quick efficiency, Cal kills the one still holding him. He then attacks the one that had tortured him, but unfortunately she saw him coming. They fight, Cal getting badly torn up in the process. At the last moment, the berserker rage sets in entirely, driving him into a place of mindless violence and arousal. Lost in the madness, Cal tears out her throat while drinking her blood. As she slowly dies from blood loss, she seems to accept that Cal isn't broken, and calls him "Auphe Brother." This reaches through the madness and stops Cal cold. Coming out of the berserker rage, Cal begins to beat her to death, screaming "No more! No more brothers!"

He is so lost that he doesn't notice the last Auphe circling to come at him from behind. It isn't until she falls, her claws only inches from him, that he looks up, ready to attack. He sees the Auphe collapsed on the ground, his knife buried in her lower back, straight into her heart. Out of the corner of his eye Cal sees movement, and prepares to attack. It takes a moment for him to realize that it's Niko, barely conscious and still on the ground. During the fighting, Niko regained a tenuous grip on consciousness, enough to find Cal's knife, and stab the third Auphe while she was distracted. The sight of Niko brings Cal back from most of the madness, and he gets his brother to his feet and begins running. He knows he shouldn't leave the last female alive, even if only barely, but he realizes that the time Niko's has spent in Tumulus is slowly killing him

When they finally reach outside, Cal is exhausted beyond anything he's ever felt before and is barely able to call a gate back home. Just as the gate is about to transport them both, he feels claws begin to wrap around his arm.


	9. Waking

Title: Recovery

Author: ThirstySatyr

Rating: M, for language, violence, m/m sexuality, and squick content

Chapter 8/10: Waking

Standard Disclaimer: Not mine. Rob Thurman's.

Note: Cal was never really a morning person.

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I woke with a scream, thrashing wildly at the hand on my arm. With a snarl I spun, ready to rip the throat from the one holding me – _I've killed you once, I can do it again..._

I rolled off the bed with her underneath me, caught totally by surprise. Foolish bitch, being dead made you slow. I can kill you as many times as I have to.

"Cal!"

The sound hit me, tearing at the sleep haze I was still caught under.

The Auphe didn't call me 'Cal'. Brother, cousin, traitor... never Cal.

Slowly the red staining my vision began to recede, the rest of the room coming into hesitant focus.

A bed; I'd rolled of a bed.

The flesh under my hands was warm, not salamander smooth and cold. The blood just under the skin, pulsing through the throat just inches from my mouth, smelled of young earth and not rotting loam. And the eyes...

"Oh fuck," I breathed, throwing myself back and away from bright green, frightened eyes. I'd almost killed Robin. One more second, one more inch, and I would have opened his jugular just like I'd opened hers...

Like I'd opened hers... like I'd opened…

Whose?

The thought faded, sinking into a deep water I hoped never to find the bottom of. It didn't matter what it would have been like, it still would have ended with a dead puck, and a not too thrilled me.

"Fuck, Loman. God-fucking-damn it. I'm..." I struggled to get the words out, trying desperately to remember what they should be.

Then it was déjà vu all over again, as lips slammed into mine. Hands laced into my hair, so carefully holding me without holding me down.

"Let me bring you home," he breathed against my mouth.

Home. I had to come back home, because if I didn't... where would I go?

The answer swam in the darkness at the back of my mind, a flash of red, here and gone, new and frightening.

"Help me," I heard myself answer. "I don't know how to do this."

It was awkward and every touch was like a stutter, but eventually we figured it out.

After, I fell into a blessedly dreamless sleep, content.

I was back. I was better... still not perfect, though.


	10. Ghosts

Title: Recovery

Author: ThirstySatyr

Rating: M, for language, violence, m/m sexuality, and squick content

Chapter 9/10: Ghosts

Standard Disclaimer: Not mine. Rob Thurman's.

Note: This chapter was surprisingly hard to get done. I knew parts of it, and I knew where I wanted it to go – but it was like pulling teeth from a Hippo. I also didn't know what to name it; so please excuse the lame chapter title.

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The thump of a down pillow landing on my head was the first indication that I should have, probably, been awake.

"Fine, bask in the afterglow. See if I care. I will go to work and earn the money that paid for the wine you're still sleeping off…"

Goodfellow's irritated voice as he stormed out of the bedroom was the second indicator.

"I told you I was a lousy guest," I grumbled with absolutely no sympathy. When I discovered that sun light was way too bright, I decided I didn't really need to open my eyes. The vanilla coffee we'd let over heat the night before had been re-brewed, the smell wafting through the apartment like a lazy phantom, and doing nothing to encourage conciseness. Sleep, vanilla scented sleep, seemed like the nicest possible option to start the day.

"I called your brother last night," Robin chimed from down the hall, both empathetic and irritating. "He knows you're okay. Just... thought you'd like to know."

And with that, sleep was still the nicest option, but not the one I groaned at as I slid my legs out from under the covers. My feet were bare, again, but at least they found thick carpet instead of the concrete of my bedroom.

Goodfellow was nice enough to finish whatever he was doing, and just leave. No long good byes, no rehashing of the night's escapades, and no dwelling on the state of my sanity; he really was a damned good friend. I heard the front door slide shut, the three locks clicking rhythmically into place. I had a key; I'd lock up once I managed to get moving.

Once I was dressed back in yesterday's clothes, I padded my way to the kitchen. As I poured coffee into one of the tackiest mugs I'd ever had the joy of holding, I just noticed the time glowing at me from the puck's microwave; 11AM – one hell of a sleep in. Thinking that I should probably call the apartment, I pulled my cell out and sipped slowly at the beautiful, blessed, life-giving caffeine.

When the second ring buzzed in my ear, I knew Niko wasn't home. I let it go a couple more, though, just in case. If he wasn't at the apartment, were else would he be? Not at class; though I wasn't _completely_ sure, I had a strong suspicion that it was Saturday. And from the patchwork of bandages I'd seen yesterday, he was in no shape for the dojo. So, that meant he was probably still at Promise's.

As much as I felt like I should check in, I just wasn't up for calling his cell phone and running the chance that someone else might pick it up. And, really, who was I to deny him one day of sleeping in? It was about time some of my laziness rubbed off.

But, Niko being otherwise occupied meant that I had to entertain myself for the day. Admittedly, I was better, but being inactive all day didn't sound like a sanity-cultivating plan.

First things first, though; I needed breakfast.

I dug through Robin's kitchen, trying not to make too much of a mess. Pickled capers, pickled baby corn, pickled onions, pickles, jasmine rice, chipotle in adobo (the fuck?), fifteen jars of martini olives, Greek yogurt, milk, fresh vegetables, whole fruit, eggs, spices, whole wheat flour, sugar… damn, nothing. Not even a decent pancake mix (just add water!). I ended up devouring a box of cookies labeled "Biscuits", and locking the door behind me as I left.

I wandered downtown, slowly heading south, trying to think of something to do. I couldn't be idle; idle hands equaled the Devil's playground, and all that jazz. Which meant I needed _something_ to occupy myself. Anything. Even work.

It was almost two in the afternoon when I stopped by the bar, and it was as open as it ever was. I didn't get three steps in the door, though, before my boss was pushing me back out. Apparently Promise had called the day before, saying I was sick; something about possible molting. I could tell Isaiah hadn't bought it, but as he gave my hair a wary glance he told me to come back in two days once I'd "rested up."

As much as glaring at drunken werewolves was irritating more than entertaining, work would have been a good way to keep my brain busy. With that option gone, I looked for a way to keep my body busy. I made my way through the park for a couple of hours, walking and sometimes jogging when the mood stuck, trying to burn off some of the frantic energy coiling in my gut despite my best efforts to stay in a calm-happy place. Strangely, even with the very visible limp, I spent the time alone, without even a revenant to pick a fight with. Eventually, I felt the sun making its slow way westward and decided to head in.

It was a quick subway ride, and a short walk back to the half empty apartment building we called home. I walked slowly up the three stories of stairs that lead to our door, trying not to favor my ankle too much. The building's unfinished atrium echoed my uneven footsteps like a metal and concrete drum. Ah, the comforts of home.

The moment the lock clicked free to my key, I knew Niko still wasn't home. The apartment felt empty as I walked through it, leaving the lights off and letting my senses filter through the space. Empty and secure, just like it had been a week ago. Or, as far as this world figured it, three days ago.

First stop was the kitchen, where I downed an entire package of gold fish crackers, what was left of the jug of milk, three Twinkies, and was seriously thinking of venturing into one of Niko's soy-monstrosities. Not having eaten for seven-ish days, at least as far as my stomach was concerned, left me just hungry enough to risk it. I sighed as I reached for whatever the hell it was, and then stopped. Breathing again, this time only through my nose, I decided that a shower was suddenly a higher priority.

Robin. I still smelled like Robin; young trees and musk. It wasn't the worst thing I could smell like. It wasn't even all that bad. But, to be honest, it wasn't something I wanted to dwell on either. I'd been lost and scared, and Goodfellow had been the best possible friend he could have been. That being said, I wanted nothing more than to put the whole thing into a box labeled "for emergency use only," then walk away.

And so help me if he brought it up, I'd punch him. In the balls. With a brick.

I stripped as I made my way to the bathroom, tossing my borrowed clothes behind me, fully aware that I'd be picking them all up later – and probably with a black eye. Out of old habit, I avoided looking in the mirror and left the bathroom light off; it was almost eight, but the large window let in the last of the spring sunset and plenty of city glow. The water ran with a thump and hiss, and eventually became a steady downpour that didn't smell too thickly of chlorine and copper. Once I figured it was as hot as I could stand it, I stepped under the spay and sighed. The water beat against me, and I could feel the days sliding off my skin. It was soothing, and freeing; what was it about showers that made you feel so human?

When I finally climbed out, I smelled strongly of oatmeal and my fingers looked like raisins. I'd been in there almost an hour, making a sizable dent in the building's water heater, but damn I felt better. I was even able to talk myself out of Niko's soy-whatever when I walked back to the fridge, still wrapped in a towel and dripping all over the concrete-slab floor. The chocolate cookies that had been shoved to the back of the tallest cabinet, likely having expired some time last decade, were a much better choice. And I happily munched on the last two as I contemplated my closet. What to wear? I'd been in borrowed clothes the past two days, and I wanted something comfortable, familiar. I thumbed through the pile of jeans and sweats at the bottom of my closet, but nothing jumped out at me. Which was good; I didn't want to think of what would have to happen for a piece of my clothes to actually jump out at me. I'd probably just shoot it, anyway.

Eventually I walked back out to the hallway and the trail of discarded clothes, looking like a abandoned funeral parade. Each item was Niko's, left at Promise's as an emergency back up should a job, or date, ever get messy. Luckily, we fit pretty much the same size, though our tastes were wildly different. Where Niko preferred a nicely tailored black, I tended toward whatever was cheapest at the Salvation Army. Though the two were not _entirely_ mutually exclusive, we rarely ended up sharing closet space. That didn't stop me from dropping my towel and slipping the jeans back on. They had a slightly tighter fit than my pants would have, but they were comfortable. I pulled the first shirt from my floor that didn't smell like a bar, wrapped a brace around my ankle, slipped on some socks, and headed out to the living room to find my shoes.

I was just finishing my second shoe, carefully tying the bow, when Niko got home. I'd known he was in the building. It was silly, and I wouldn't be able to explain it, but I'd known. Just as I knew that something wasn't right. I finished the bow with a tight pull, and looked up.

My brother was dressed all in black, as was his usual, with his long trench coat neatly hiding the armory of weapons he no doubt carried. It wasn't until I met his eyes that I got my confirmation that something was off. Niko was starting at me. There was nothing obviously wrong; no heavy breathing, no dilated pupils, no blood vessel throbbing in his temple like it was trying to push its way to freedom. But I could feel it like a presence in the air, some specter, large and heavy and taking up all the space in the room.

"Hey, Nik," I spoke, still sitting on the couch. "Promise okay?" I asked, genuinely wanting to know. Of course, Niko wouldn't have left her if she hadn't been okay; but confirmation was always nice.

Unless it was a silent nod, which was all I got.

Fine, I could be quiet too. Neither of us spoke for a long couple of minutes. Niko just stood there, calm for all intents and purposes, except for the storm I could feel just under his skin. I fidgeted, slouched, sat up straight, and slouched again.

Finally I gave, because I knew Niko sure as hell wasn't.

"Okay," I breathed, and pushed my way to standing. We were both quiet a few seconds longer, then I took a limping step forward and apparently broke whatever was holding him together.

"You weren't there!" Niko growled suddenly, not meeting my eyes.

I avoided the first punch easily, but the second came so fast it connected. I tried to roll out from underneath the blow, but he just kept moving, swinging with all his weight. It was messy, his whole body committed to each strike, his center of balance lost in each motion; it was the kind of mistake that, if made with a monster, would have seen him dead already. It was the kind of mistake that my brother just didn't make.

Usually.

When I kicked out and took his legs from underneath him, landing him flat on his ass, I expected the manic to stop. If nothing else the shock of me taking him down so easily should have made it through his thick skull. Instead he just got right back up, and started swinging again.

Moments like this brought it home, just how alike we were. Normally, you couldn't see it; he was quiet and stoic, eating properly and grooming his hair regularly. Then there was me; the angsty, obnoxious ass that jumped before looking, and cursed like longshoreman from east LA. But moments like this, you couldn't deny the resemblance. He was acting like me; being stupid, being scared, being lost and refusing to ask for help. It was a Freudian mirror, and I didn't like seeing it.

"Niko! Fuck, Nik!" I shouted between blows, trying to keep some distance between us. It was hard, though; every punch felt like it was followed by a grasp at my clothes or hair. He wanted me closer, and I wasn't sure if, in his mood, that was safe for either of us.

This was way too much like me. And the second it took to think that was too much of a pause. Taking full advantage of my moment's distraction, Niko caught the front of my shirt, and yanked me close.

"You weren't there!" he hissed against my face. His jaw was locked so tight, I could just see his muscles starting to shake.

My teeth slammed together with how hard he pulled me, and it was a struggled to keep from fighting back, my hands very carefully wide and empty at my sides.

"I know, Niko. I know," I tried to sound like the spirit of calm, soothing and not at all anxious. "How do I fix it?"

He seemed to really think about the question, seriously considering options I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like. It took a second, but I saw a conclusion click into place behind his eyes, and for a moment it looked uncertain. He locked his eyes with mine and I could almost feel him searching for… something, some answering flicker that I didn't know how to give. Finally he seemed to find it, and when he released his grip on my shirt and told me to grab a jacket, I didn't ask any of the stupid questions that immediately came to mind. All I did was follow.

What could possibly fix the twisted up feelings of lost we were both dealing with? The answer, apparently, involved the subway. For hours. And hours. I sat in the corner seat Niko'd pushed me into and tried not to fidget, but it was hard to do with nothing but his closeness, and the rich bouquet that was the train to occupy my mind. For the first hour, I'd tried to guess at where we were going; we were on a train headed south, changed trains, headed north, changed trains to a 6, then headed south again. Not really conclusive.

Over the course of the second hour, I tried to guess the species of all the other passengers. That hadn't been too engrossing, as I really only had four categories I cared about; wolf, revenant, human, and not human. And the occasional 'walking target; won't last the week'.

By the fourth hour the train we were on was empty, my ass was numb, my brain was mush, and my brother didn't look like he'd twitched so much as an eyelid the whole time. It had to have been just after 2AM, which meant the next load of train companions were going to be the kind just kicked out of a bar, and I suppressed a sigh at the thought.

Somewhere in a distance I was totally incapable of knowing, an alarm must have gone off, because as the train opened its doors to the twentieth or so completely empty station, my brother was moving – dragging me stunned behind him. He didn't look at me as he hauled me off the car and moved quickly toward the end of the long platform, the sound of our footsteps swallowed by the departing train. Then the train was gone, and my hitched breath was almost deafening.

We kept moving until we reached the end of the platform, and then we were jumping. At least, my brother jumped, while I fell gracelessly after. My surprised decent to the train tracks would have ended with me on my face, if my brother hadn't had a death grip on my elbow. With it, he pulled me along, and I stumbled behind him in the dim for what felt like the longest fifteen minutes of my life.

One hand holding my gun tight and low against my thigh, I watched the darkness behind us, and tried hard to trust that Niko would take care of anything ahead of us. I almost fell twice, my far from healed ankle complaining from the abuse, and both times was unceremoniously wrenched back upright, Niko's pace never changing.

Very quietly, I started to admit that my brother was scaring me.

When I almost fell again, and _again_ was pulled back to my feet without Niko even slowing down, I decided I'd had enough. I ripped my arm from my brother's hand and planted my boots in the hundred-year's worth of grime under foot, trying to ignore the burn crawling up my left leg.

"What the hell, Nik?" I shouted into the foggy darkness.

I could just make out his silhouette as his momentum kept him moving a few more steps. I watched him almost stumble on the slick ground as he turned back to face me, both his hands reaching out to steady himself. Both of his empty hands. He hadn't been holding a weapon.

"We're almost there," he breathed roughly.

So not the answer I was looking for.

It must have been obvious, because a moment later he tried again.

"We're almost there," he repeated, but this time there was a question, a 'please' buried somewhere in his voice.

I seriously thought about turning around and limping away. But I knew I wouldn't. This was Niko, this was my brother. I'd already proven I'd follow him into hell.

Instead of answering, I gestured, kind of rudely, for him to keep walking. And I followed, just as I always would.

It felt like another five minutes before the darkness of the tunnel began to slowly change, giving way to a faint non-artificial looking light. I couldn't figure out how, but somewhere ahead of us natural light was finding its way into to the underground.

We rounded a corner, and if I were any type of wuss, I'd say my breath got taken away. We'd walked from one station to another, but it looked almost like we'd walk from one time to another. There was a high, vaulted ceiling that looked like it was covered in intricate scales, with chandeliers hanging between the arches. It was like looking at something from a Charles Dickens book. Any second cheerful little scamps would appear with a spot light, and start performing a musical number. Or Alice would show up and jabber on about her tumble in Wonderland. It was strange, and easily the last thing I expected to see in the New York underground.

The scuff sound of my brother making it up to the platform pulled me back to here and now. For a long second I just looked at him up there, wondering if joining him was the smartest thing to do.

But then again, he was my brother. Being with him might not be the smartest thing, but it was always what I was going to do.

Once I made it up, cussing a couple times, and making a hell of a lot more noise than he had, Niko started walking again. I followed at a slower pace, letting myself take in the sights. The place looked like the inside of a snake, each arch a rib, and the whole thing curving so tight into the gloom I couldn't see where it ended. Even the walls looked like a snake, though the outside of it rather than the inside. What I had thought looked like scales, were actually tiles; black and cream, patterned like a woven skin. There was even a damned skylight. The muted natural light I'd wondered about had been the moon, filtered through thick bricks of glass. This was the strangest subway station I'd ever been in. From the smell, it hadn't been in use for at least 50 years; the only human scents I got were from the occasional transient and even more occasional revenant. It was a Ghost Station, echoing and empty. Except for us.

Niko walked along the curve of the wall, past the closed off stairwell, and into an alcove almost invisible in the dim light. It was a moment before I caught up to him, and in that second he seemed to disappear – just another ghost. I walked in and could barely get a sense of the space; about 10 by 10, maybe used for storage or something, with almost no light making it in. Even the darkness couldn't keep me from finding him, though; my brother stood like a stone, in the middle of light-less room. I just stepped in, walked past him, and leaned against the back wall, unsure how to continue from here. Out in the station a train rumbled by, not bothering to stop in this empty place. Neither of us reacted.

At the moment, it seemed I was more stable then my brother; and that wasn't something I ever wanted to think. Which got me wondering – what had he and Promise been up to all night? If Robin had been able to being me mostly back, shouldn't Promise have been able to do the same for Niko?

We were quiet for a long time, and frankly I was starting to develop a burning hatred for awkward silences. But I had no idea how to even start. It was Niko who finally broke the stillness, walking toward me with a slow, heavy intensity. I was too anxious to move as he got closer, even though his movements made me feel like an animal being hunted. My breath caught as we connected and, for a moment, it felt like he wasn't going stop, just push through me like I wasn't there. And he didn't stop, not until I was completely pinned against the wall, his chest pressed tightly against mine. I was nearly overwhelmed by the feeling that I _wasn't going anywhere_. This was Niko. This was Niko. Just keep telling yourself that; this was Niko.

"You weren't there," his voice made me twitch, coming like a wraith in the near darkness. It sounded so... final. Almost an accusation, almost a plea. I felt more than saw him move his hands and press them heavily against the wall. The hiss of them sliding up the concrete made me jump against him, the sound winding me like a wire, the tension building until his palms pressed into the wall on either side of my head. I could barely swallow around the smell of him, and I was shaking, ringing like bell.

He was pressing into me, pressing through me. The healing wounds on my back may have been screaming, but the feeling was lost in the pressure of _him_. I was trapped, I was drowning. Every inch of him leaning into me, his scent filling me up, his heat soaking through my skin.

This was Niko; just keep telling yourself that. This was Niko.

"You weren't there..." he breathed, almost against my ear. I shuttered.

Then he was sliding, slowly, down my body. His hands came away from the wall and trailed down my chest to my hips, wrapping tightly around my stomach, his whole body sinking until he knelt in front of me. But his pressing strength never let up, never stopped pinning me _here._

"Niko?" I said his name like a question, finding the back of his neck with my hand. So lost, so tightly wound, I couldn't do anything but hold onto him.

"I woke, and you weren't there," he shook against me as he spoke, his voice pulled thin and breakable.

"I thought it was you... but it was... And Promise noticed... And then you were screaming! Screaming like..." his breath shuttered out of him, catching on the remembered fear. "You were slipping, and I had to get you back. You'd found me, and I couldn't let you go back there alone. Then I had you, but Promise..." His voice choked off into silence.

"I know, Niko," I tried to reassure him. I'd been there; attacking Robin to distract Promise, trying to lie to her with a different truth. "I know..."

"I woke up, and you weren't there," Niko hissed between his teeth, his forehead pressed hard against my stomach. The way he said it, I knew he didn't just mean today, or even yesterday. He was telling me about days waking up to a nightmare wrapped like a vine around him, days of blood loss and not being able to fight back, days in the darkness where I hadn't found him yet.

"I'm sorry, Nik," I answered automatically, wishing there was something more I could say.

But there was more – there was always more. We both knew we'd left our apartment for a reason, walking away from one of the few places that was ours. We could have had that security; walls and doors and a bed to remind us of civilization and what it was to be human and not prey. Instead we were underground again, though at least it was a human underground this time. There was a reason for it, though; I knew it, and he knew it. But maybe it needed to be said out loud.

"You needed to take care of Promise, Nik. You needed to make that right. She… she can't…"

I sighed heavily, trying to make my hand on his neck be the anchor we both needed. "She's why were here, and not at the apartment. She doesn't want to know about this, Nik. It would hurt her."

"I know… I'm sorry," he apologized like it was something he could change.

My brother; Mr Weight of the World.

Carefully I pushed against him, loosening his grip enough to slide down the wall and kneel with him on the ground. It was better this way; us on the same level, leaning against each other.

"Not your fault, big brother. Not her fault either," I said it gently, trying to let the tension in my gut uncoil enough to reassure him. Quirking a weak smile, I offered "This isn't exactly standard."

That got a startled laugh out him; non-standard was one way of putting it.

Then the laughter died, and the quiet moved us. The space between us closed as Niko pressed his forehead to mine, and our breathing fell into synch. Then, as if he was as sensitive to scent as I was, he pushed his face into my hair, breathing deeply. Silently, he shifted, bringing his knees against mine, sliding his hands under my jacket, and letting his head fall until his mouth pressed to my throat. That connection beat through me as if I'd been hooked to a live wire, the current building up in me, pouring in with no way out. So I pushed against him, mirroring his movements, and with the press of my mouth to his throat I completed the circuit.

This was home. This was family. This, _absolutely fucking this_, was what I needed.

"I woke up this morning..." he breathed against my racing pulse. "You weren't there."

"I had to leave you to it, you know? With Promise…" I answered between breaths. "I had to go away…"

"You went home with Robin?" he asked it like a statement, his voice warm with the hint of teasing.

"Hey," I started to protest, pulling slightly away from the electric warmth. "You make it sounds like…" Like what? Exactly what it had been.

Damn.

Instead of speaking, I just coughed, and leaned back in to hide my face in his hair.

"Cal. Little brother," he said quietly, and I could feel his lips lift in a smile. "Robin took you home, I know. He helped. He kept you safe while I couldn't."

Then he pulled back from me, pulling his smell away. I almost whined to get it back.

When he could look me in the eyes, he smiled again. "He helped bring you back. I'm… grateful."

He smiled at me a moment longer, then something smoky flickered like a phantom in his eyes.

"But it should have been me."

His voice sent a tingly thrill down my spine.

"It should have been me bringing you home..." His words rumbled against me as he pulled open my jacket. "It should have been you bringing me home..."

That was the key; this was home, for both of us. This heat; this connection; this place where we were one life, burning away the dark. As much as Niko loved Promise, she would always be second to this. And that was one of the reasons she and I kept having our little "misunderstandings" - because a part of her knew it.

At the moment, though, that didn't matter. All that mattered was the collision.

In an explosion of energy and clothes, we were down to skin, the chill of the underground air completely ignored. Pulling and pushing at each other, we met, letting the heat build like a living thing between us.

Through the darkness, we found our way back.


	11. Perfect, though…

Title: Recovery

Author: ThirstySatyr

Rating: M, for language, violence, m/m sexuality, and squick content

Chapter 10/10: Perfect, though…

Standard Disclaimer: Not mine. Rob Thurman's.

Note: To those of you who have stayed with me through this (all two of you!); thanks. Personally, I think fan fiction is an inherently selfish thing – which doesn't make it bad. It just something that a person usually does for themselves. There is a desire to be a part of someone else's world, and writing fan fiction helps make a connection. However, through the private messages and reviews, you have made me feel like maybe I wasn't doing this story just for me. So thanks, and hope you've enjoyed the ride.

Also, sorry it's taken so long… clearly I'm not good with timely-ness.

Also, also; thanks again. I can't say that enough.

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It felt like hours later that the rumble of an approaching train pulled me from the lazy, melted inside of my head and back into the real world.

It took more blinks than it should have to make my eyes focus out into the hazy dark. I wasn't exactly happy when I finally recognized the railcar. The broken hiss of train doors opening echoed in the empty station, and then a tinny, ghost of a voice called _"__This is the last downtown stop on this train. The next stop will be Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall on the…"_

I was reaching for my gun, and a half a breath later reaching for my pants, when my brother gestured for me to stop. I barely saw him in the gloom, and as being walked over by irritated drunk people, while I was naked, wasn't high on my list of things to do, I almost ignored him. But I did stop, waiting and tense in the faded darkness.

Then the distorted metal voice came again, this time warning passengers to remain in the car at all times, the door hissed shut, and the train rattled away.

Right, this was a Ghost Station; no one gets off, no one gets on.

Niko turned my face back to his with a nudge of his jaw. Lightly he pressed his lips to my face, once below each eye. _Don't worry_, he was telling me, _I'll look out for you._

My big brother, always watching my back; kicking my ass when I needed it, letting me fall when I needed it, and always anchoring me to the center of the earth.

It wasn't any kind of arrogance that let me know I did the same for him. It was just the truth.

Without a word we both pulled our clothes back on against the cold, and then just lay there. For almost an hour we lay beside each other in the lost storage closet of the Ghost Station, occasionally shifting on the hard concrete, remaining comfortably quiet.

When Niko eventually spoke, I was expecting it. It was something that needed saying.

"How much do you remember?"

I'd been asking myself the same thing for a while now, counting down the minutes until he would inevitably make me say it out loud. I figured Niko recalled more than I did; it just depended on how much he'd been conscious for, I guess. But even snatches of consciousness were likely clearer than the muffling void I had like an overly friendly roommate in my skull. Clearer then my memories, but certainly not better.

"Not much," I finally answered, not bothering to look at him in the dark. He was there, hand curled protectively around the back of my neck. "I mean, I remember; it's just not… clear, exactly."

He stayed quiet, letting me find my own words.

"After they took you, they sent two males; to distract us, I guess. They were…" I paused; what had they been? I prodded at the memory like poking a bruise, exploring it like the pain might force it to make more sense. When I felt the knowledge bob to the surface at the back of my mind, rising up like a bloated corpse, I thought that maybe it was less like a bruise and more like a bloody wound.

"They were fucked up," I continued weakly, trying to process the knowledge without rolling over and vomiting right then and there. "The bitches that took you... they messed up Robin some, but didn't stick around. After Promise and I got there, the two males showed up. They were crazy; just... fucking gone. It's the smell of the females that did it. They were practically soaked in it; and it... it fucks with them, Nik. Makes 'em crazy, out of control. There's no mind left when an Auphe smells a female. Just violence, just killing."

Niko didn't ask how I knew what the smell of a female Auphe did; he could have, dragging it out of me one word at a time. But my brother let it go, trusting that I would share what I needed to, and left me to stumble on at my own pace.

"They were… _okay_, when they first showed up. But then they just lost it. They fought, and it was fucking terrifying, but they were messy. They didn't know what was going on. They didn't know anything. Just attacked because that was all that was left in them. I took one's arm off and..." I paused, and had to smile a little bit at that. That was me, Mr Technique. But the humor didn't last.

"Then I followed you," for a moment, I could feel the memory brush up against my senses. The indistinct, grey light began to gain back some of its color; something putrid and awful bleeding in from the edges. I could smell sulfur and dry copper like it was far away, but getting closer. And there was a buzzing sound, something almost electric, ringing in the distance in my ears. "It was days, Nik; I was just running, for fucking ever. It was just cave after cave, and… And then... Then I found you. They attacked me, though. Took me down... there were three of them, all female. And two of them… they… they'd… hurt you."

I finished lamely, and suddenly had a lot more sympathy for Robin; it was just so _damn_ hard to say.

We were both quiet a long time before my brother finally spoke, his voice flat and empty.

"Don't sugar-coat it, Cal."

God damnit, I didn't want to be the one to say it. I didn't want the words to come from me. But as I felt Niko's fingers flex against my neck, the movement so small I almost didn't notice, I knew I would say them so he wouldn't have to. I'd take that much of the weight from his shoulders.

"They raped you." It fell out of me like a fucking stone.

I couldn't let those words just sit there, so I kept talking, trying to push past. "I got up somehow. My throat hurt, and everything, I don't know, looked red or something. But… I think they were fighting. Over… something," I shook my head, trying to find the words that were abruptly elusive. They dove in and out of the static that was ringing in my ears, slippery and too fast to catch. "Then, the one that'd, um, attacked me was going for you... and I, ah… I just…um…"

Just, what?

I couldn't remember.

I sat up suddenly, jerking away from Niko's hand. Franticly, I felt my thoughts spinning – but my mind was blank and quiet; what had I done?

"You killed them for me, little brother," Niko spoke, filling my suddenly choked silence. I could hear him sitting up, moving carefully and slowly in my peripheral vision. "You saved me," he finished, his voice letting me know that this was all that mattered.

"I can't remember, Nik; it's just, gone," I was panicking, despite my brother's attempt to be soothing. My scalp hurt where I was digging at my hair, my fingers pushing like I could reach through my skull and find what had suddenly vanished. "I know it, but I can't _remember_ it." I was breathing too fast, I could feel it, but… I'd been talking, and yeah, it had been vague; the smells and the tastes where mostly gray, the colors washed out, but there'd been something – and suddenly, there was just emptiness. I'd had bits and pieces before, enough for me to talk to Robin, enough for me to start talking to Niko. But now, there was nothing; just a hollow spot where a part of my life had been.

"It doesn't matter," Niko voice was low in the darkness, and I could feel him moving, getting closer, pressing his shoulder to mine.

"You killed them for me," he said it like it had been carved in stone; no questions, no doubts. "You brought me home."

I just leaned against him and shook, wondering how much I would lose as time passed, wondering if it mattered.

"You saved me, little brother."

Niko just repeated those words over and over, waiting out the earthquake that ran its way up my body. I guess the emptiness was finally stepping up, doing its job and swallowing one more horror, suppressing one more nightmare. Through sheer habit and stubbornness I wanted to fight it, try to cling to the faded details. But, eventually, I let it go. Niko was right; there were only two things that really mattered – they were dead, and we weren't.

We sat quietly for a long time, listening as another train rolled pointlessly through. When a third came and went, I realized that the trains were getting more frequent. Which most likely meant it was getting toward morning.

"We should probably go," I finally found my voice, and was pleasantly surprised by how stable it sounded. It had been a hell of a night, capping one beast of a week. I was tired and hungry again, but I was finally home. I had my assurance that my brother was alive, and really, that was what I needed to finally move past the mood swings, and maybe even most of my crazies.

"Yes," Niko replied, bringing his hand up to my shoulder. "I think we're both… settled enough. Demons exercised and all of that."

He was trying to make a joke of it, tuck the past however many days away into something manageable. It was a good coping mechanism, one I was fond of. But it got me thinking.

"Nik… there's something I don't get."

"Just one thing?"he answered quickly, and I could almost hear his eyebrow raise.

"Ha. Ha. Hilarious. But seriously," I started again, trying to give voice to the suddenly nagging uncertainty. "I don't get it – the whole Robin thing... yeah, not dwelling on it, but – he helped. Why weren't... I mean... Promise should have..." I growled a bit in awkward frustration, realizing there wasn't really a polite way to say it. And honestly, after tonight, I didn't really have a legit reason to be so damned _uncomfortable_ on the topic. "Sex with Promise should have helped you get stable, not make you crazier."

The words rushed out of me, but once they were out I felt a bit better.

Niko didn't answer at first. When I felt him shift, moving in what might have been mistaken for a un-Niko like nervous way, I realized he was just as uncomfortable with the topic as I was; past and present situations be damned.

"I couldn't," Niko started unsteadily, all attempts at humor gone. "Not yet. She was…" Niko sighed, letting the rest of the words die, because he was my brother, and he knew I understood. Promise was, and remains, female; and as much as he loved her, that was a fresh wound. The hesitance wasn't awkwardness in talking to his little brother about sex; it was that he'd been brutally raped.

I discovered that I had at least one more good, solid mood swing left in me; without preamble, I was just suddenly enraged - just straight up, fucking pissed at the world.

"Everything is so fucked, Nik. How are we… How are you… I mean, Promise is…" I finally gave up trying to put my resentment-for-the-whole-god-damned-universe into words. Instead, I just snarled, my teeth bared at nothing. My brother was supposed to have something normal, damn it; he'd earned at least that much putting up with me. And yeah, Promise was a vampire, but she loved him and did everything she could to make him happy, to give him something secure. And then the demonic side of my family had to come along and fucked even that up.

"Everything is just, so fucked," I said again, my pointless growls and snarls dying. I felt totally defeated; once again, my brother suffered because of me.

"No its not," Niko answered slowly, doing his best impression of an optimist.

A cynical snort was all he got from me.

"Its not, Cal. We're alive, and we're home," he gave the words to me like each was a jewel, or a child, or a blade finely crafted and worthy of worship.

But I wasn't ready to drink that Cool-Aid.

"So, what, we didn't die; that makes everything absolutely-fucking prefect?" I wasn't ready to meet his eyes just yet, so I snapped the words at the gradually brightening darkness. A part of me reached out wildly to that slowly coming light. Dawn was on its way; it felt like we'd spent the past week of our lives underground, trying to dig our way out, but a fresh day was finally coming.

In the dim I could hear my brother moving, shifting until he was sitting directly in front of me. I could just make out his shape as he leaned forward, wrapping his hand around the back of my neck. The pressure was warm and familiar, and I felt his preternatural calm pouring through the connection.

Pure instinct moved my hand so that I mirrored my brother, and then we were both leaning in, our foreheads rocked together.

"Yes, little brother. We are alive… and we are _home_," he said the word like it should have been capitalized, underscored, lit in neon lights.

"It is absolutely. Fucking. Perfect."

I guess he had a point. All the other possible 'right now's were suddenly clear – and us being alive really was the least likely. It could have been so different, so many times; one of us not quite fast enough, a monster just a little stronger, torn to shreds or drowned in bloody mud. So many unpleasant dead ends, and we'd somehow avoided them all. We'd made it out of that hell alive, and despite the violent and the wretched, we'd come back to each other. The madness was still in me, just waiting for me to slip up and let it loose again. And Niko… there was a shadow in him now that I wasn't sure would ever go away.

I finally let myself focus on my brother, my vision suddenly clear in the half light. Gray eyes locked with gray eyes, and I believed.

We were together. Which meant we were _home_.

Everything _was_ fucked up, despite what Niko said. It might also be absolutely, fucking perfect, though.


End file.
